Your next career will be about asking questions

The fourth industrial revolution is comming quickly. I’ve been playing with openAI (more later) and have asked it’s ChatGPT bot a few questions. I also asked it’s DALL-E to generate the image ont the top of this page. 80% of this article is generated by AI.

I asked the AI questions, and it provided the answers. See what you think. In the future I suspect the role of the human is to know which question matters most.

Try these your self at: https://chat.openai.com/chat and https://labs.openai.com/

Write 50 words on generative AI

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that involves the use of machine learning algorithms to generate new data that is similar to a given input. This can be used to create realistic images, videos, audio, and other types of media. Generative AI can be trained on large amounts of data and can produce high-quality outputs that are difficult to distinguish from human-generated content. Some common applications of generative AI include image and video synthesis, natural language generation, and audio generation.

write 100 words on the history and progress of open.ai

OpenAI is a nonprofit research organization founded in 2015 by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and other leading figures in the tech industry. The goal of OpenAI is to advance the field of artificial intelligence and to promote the development of AI that is safe, transparent, and beneficial to society. Since its inception, OpenAI has made significant progress in the field of AI, including the development of advanced machine learning algorithms and the creation of large-scale language and vision models. In 2018, OpenAI launched Dactyl, a robot hand that was able to solve a Rubik’s cube with human-like dexterity. More recently, OpenAI has been focused on developing AI technologies that can operate in complex and dynamic environments, such as video games and robotics. Overall, OpenAI has established itself as a leading player in the field of AI research and development

Write 50 words on how Regenerative AI will affect the 4th industrial revolution and employment in white collar roles

The fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, is characterized by the use of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and robotics. Generative AI is expected to play a significant role in this revolution, potentially affecting the demand for white collar jobs. Some experts predict that generative AI will automate many tasks currently performed by humans, leading to job displacement in some industries. However, it is also possible that generative AI will create new job opportunities in fields such as data analysis and machine learning. Overall, the impact of generative AI on employment in white collar roles is likely to be complex and multifaceted.

write 200 words on the potential economic benefits and pitfalls of the 4th industrial revolution

The fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, is characterized by the use of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and robotics. These technologies have the potential to bring significant economic benefits, including increased productivity, efficiency, and competitiveness. For example, the use of AI and automation can help to reduce the time and cost of certain tasks, allowing businesses to operate more efficiently and effectively. Additionally, Industry 4.0 technologies can enable the creation of new products and services, leading to the development of new markets and revenue streams.

However, the fourth industrial revolution also presents potential pitfalls and challenges. One of the main concerns is the potential for job displacement and unemployment as a result of automation. While some experts predict that Industry 4.0 technologies will create new job opportunities, others argue that many jobs will be replaced by machines, leading to a decrease in demand for labor. This could have significant consequences for workers, including income inequality and social unrest. Additionally, the rapid pace of technological change associated with Industry 4.0 may create challenges for businesses and governments, who will need to adapt quickly in order to remain competitive. Overall, the economic impact of the fourth industrial revolution is likely to be complex and multifaceted.

write 200 words on the intersection of energy transition on the 4th industrial revolution

The intersection of energy transition and the fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, is a complex and evolving area of study. Energy transition refers to the process of shifting from the use of fossil fuels to more sustainable forms of energy, such as renewable sources like solar and wind power. Industry 4.0, on the other hand, involves the use of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and robotics to drive innovation and economic growth.

The intersection of these two trends presents both opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, Industry 4.0 technologies can help to accelerate the transition to renewable energy by enabling the development of new energy storage systems, smart grids, and other technologies. For example, the use of AI and machine learning can help to optimize the operation of renewable energy systems, making them more efficient and cost-effective. Additionally, Industry 4.0 technologies can enable the creation of new products and services related to renewable energy, leading to the development of new markets and revenue streams.

However, the transition to renewable energy also poses challenges for Industry 4.0. One of the main challenges is the need for large-scale infrastructure investments to support the transition, which may require significant financial resources. Additionally, the transition to renewable energy may disrupt existing energy markets and business models, potentially leading to job losses and other economic impacts. Finally, the rapid pace of technological change associated with Industry 4.0 may create challenges for policymakers and regulators, who will need to balance the need for innovation with the need for stability and reliability in the energy sector. Overall, the intersection of energy transition and Industry 4.0 is a complex and dynamic area that will require careful planning and coordination in order to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks.

Write 100 words comparing the importance of asking the right question with researching the answer

Asking the right question is just as important, if not more important, than researching the answer. This is because a well-formed question can help to clarify the issue at hand and provide a clear direction for the research. On the other hand, a poorly-formed question can lead to confusion and ineffective research. Additionally, asking the right question can help to ensure that the research is relevant and useful. For example, a question that is too broad or too narrow may not provide the information that is needed to address the problem. Asking the right question can also help to save time and resources by focusing the research on the most important aspects of the issue. In short, asking the right question is an essential first step in any research process.

will careers of the future focus on asking the right question or doing repetitive work?

It is difficult to predict the exact nature of careers in the future, as it will depend on many factors such as technological advancements, economic conditions, and societal trends. However, it is likely that careers of the future will focus more on asking the right questions and less on repetitive work. This is because the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence and automation is expected to automate many tasks that are currently performed by humans, such as data entry and routine data analysis. As a result, careers of the future may focus more on tasks that require higher levels of creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking. These skills are often associated with the ability to ask the right questions and to think outside the box. Additionally, the rapid pace of technological change is likely to create new job opportunities in fields such as data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, which may require individuals to be adept at asking the right questions in order to drive innovation and progress.

We must act together or not at all

Climate saving behaviour is binary and it’s global. We’re either all in, or all out. You cannot get off the bus or sit this one out.

As a species we have been very good at creating multiple view points on many topics. Each side convinced that they are right. History being written by the victors and the untrodden path left shrouded in what-ifs.

With the Internet we have “culture wars” where no choice is made but factions live side by side (with various degrees of friction) and multiple opinions matter.

While there are a few points of view on climate change, the science seems to be clear. But then not everyone believes in science. Most engineers believe in science. But not all the ones I know choose to believe climate scientists. They explain to me (with no data) that forces bigger than us must be doing it (volcanoes, solar weather etc.).

Many don’t believe in religion. Whether they see the irony in being scientific, rejecting religion as hocus pocus but then assigning climate change to a “force bigger than us that we can’t understand” I’m not sure.

We cannot have co-existing points of view on climate and succeed. We, as a species are either for cleaning up our act, or we are not. There can be no compromise. To be successful with a path of modifying the atmosphere the vast majority of the world will need to act. It is not a personal choice, it is a collective one.

The world seems to be increasingly insisting that we need to clean up our act. Whether “right” or “wrong” does not matter, it looks like it is happening. There will be a battle for public opinion but will not be national. It will be global.

Will Peace Keeping Forces, may become environmental enforcers working at the behest of the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, WHO or goodness knows? Perhaps the IPCC will mobilise an army to takeover polluting plants and shut them down.

I’ve been a banging the drum for a technology led 4th industrial revolution for years, but I now feel we will have a technologically enabled, climate led one.

The implications of technologies such as AI, Autonomous Vehicles, Remote Sensing, Big Data etc. means that the outcomes will be similar to those I’ve written about before but they will be a by-product. I’ve realised the optimisation function has changed, or it was always this and I’ve just woken up to it.

Labour party announces national energy

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63046067

Well, perhaps they read last week’s blog. But judging by the analysis they appear to have done they seem to have done their own homework. But glad they agree with the point of view:

Though they did it with Electricity. I wrote this in a LinkedIn post on Monday

UK Electricity is priced at the marginal production cost. This is set by the price of gas. Recently this has meant that producers who use wind or solar have had no increase of costs but a large increase in sales price. This has led to large profits.

Some countries chose to place a windfall tax and distribute the proceeds to support consumer bills. The UK Government has chosen to support the profits by borrowing to subsidise consumers to help them pay the bill. Though there are likely to be lots of increases and difficulty paying in anycase.

The profits remain with the companies. Over 50% of offshore wind generation in the UK is owned by foreign state-owned companies. The UK is borrowing money (which will be paid back from future taxes) in order to underpin the profits of foreign states.

The other big beneficiary is the British Royal Familly. The crown estate owns and rents the sea bed out to 12 NM in return for a share of profits.

The monarchy, and the wealthy, also own large tracts of land which are similarly attracting rents from onshore turbines.

Coupled with Friday’s hood-robin of a budget annoucement do you think that political pressure for nationalisation will increase here?


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/24/uk-energy-system-state-coffers-britain-british-public

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/18/windfarm-windfall-set-to-spark-debate-about-funding-of-uk-monarchy

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/world/europe/england-land-inequality.html

Are we there yet? (or road-bock ahead – let’s take another route)

What a period of unpleasant surprises we’ve had recently. In my view they are a combination of causes and effects of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Global warming concerns are driving decarbonisation which is driving energy transition which is driving new technology adoption and resulting in the 4th Industrial Revolution by the back door. It’s not smooth and gradual – external shocks are accelerating and decelerating the process. Not everyone’s happy about it.

There have been a series of large shocks to the economic system. The system that prevailed from 1979 until 2008 no longer functions. The word crisis has been overused. It has not been a single crisis but a series of lurches during a sustained dismantling of a globalised integrated approach that was fuelled by logic and data in what will be seen as a politcally benign period.

I am not going to detail all the main drivers and the minor and major shocks but it’s quite a list. One that includes drivers like digitalisation and information transparency, speculations such as the CDO market (and probably bitcoin), and unplannable events such as Icelandic volcanoes, pandemics, Brexit and a war in Europe.

Almost 10 years ago I started the Bestem journey in pursuit of understanding and helping others cope with the 4th Industrial Age. If you had asked, I would have explained how I believed the rise in technological capability would inevitably result in its adoption. Increased efficiency and the “rise of the machines” would lead to changes to working patterns and force changes in the way wealth was distributed.

You can imagine how disappointed I am that, even with solid business cases in place, companies I talked to resolutely couldn’t have cared less. Certainly not enough to implement change. They were doing just fine thank you and there were more important things to spend their time on. Admittedly I was talking to Oil and Gas operators who exist in a quasi-monopolistic position (where they rarely feel the pressure to compete with each other) but the story was similar in many established industries. Taxi drivers and Hotels were disrupted by Uber and AirBnB – but they were victims of an information revolution rather than an industrial one. If anything, their systems became less efficient, but the profit-distribution changed.

A couple of years ago, I realised that the economic case for solar had dramatically improved. Semi-conductor technology and electrical efficiency had also experienced a step-change improvement. I was sold on the case for energy transition where electrical systems replaced chemical ones based on traditional economic drivers. Of course, I argued, in certain applications where portability of high-density energy was required (air travel etc.) there really were not many alternatives to gasoline available. So, my view was that energy growth would be taken care of through electricity but that fossil fuels would remain the baseload for a while to come.

Then I saw the data on climate change and decarbonisation. I did my research, I read Bill Gate’s book, I watched the BBC series on the obfuscation operations conducted by Big Oil and re-watched Al-Gore’s inconvenient truth from 25 years ago.

I still speak to oil companies that see compliance with environmental legislation and emissions reductions as some form of cost to be managed. It really isn’t. Protecting the atmosphere (or as Al Gore put it, the layer of varnish on top of the globe on your desk – yes it is that thin, and the only thing that makes life possible) is extremely important. It should be our number one priority, it’s a matter of morals not profits. It should be a matter of regulation.

Add to that the evident issues of energy geo-politics and how “western” civilisation and values seem increasingly at odds with the behaviour of “strong-men” leaders who control fossil deposits, and it seems clear that independent, non-centralised, distributed generation and consumption adds resilience that can withstand shocks and provide stable, reliable and fairly priced energy.

We are on the cusp of change in many industries forced by energy scarcity, emissions reduction, supply chain re-configuration, demographics, and work-force expectations. There will be no choice but to adapt to these new configurations, some of which will be underpinned by legislation and international sanctions.

Of course, if you are setting about re-configuring an industry it will inevitably use new information and digital technologies, it will use AI and it will use 3D printing. You might not choose to swap your perfectly functional old system with a slightly better new one, but if you must change anyway then of course you will replace with systems that use the new technologies. These new technologies will be more efficient and will lead to different employment mechanisms and the distribution of wealth.

It’s the same outcome I’ve been banging on about, but it will take a different route.

O&G – Exploration and industry 4.0

In an earlier post [LINK] I briefly introduced the four areas of upstream value chain that could benefit from the 4th Industrial Revolution. Here I put forward some potentially controversial points about how this may (or may not) affect Exploration.

First of all my definition: Exploration is concerned with finding and appraising new deposits of Hydrocarbons trapped under the surface of the earth. It’s the identification of these that I am addressing here, not how (or if they can be) exploited.

There have been many advances made in technology in the previous 25 years that have transformed the process of finding deposits. The two most notable have been around the use of remote sensing through Seismic Data, and the accuracy with which deviated wells can be drilled. Seismic acts like an x-ray into the composition of the rocks, while new wells use precision direction control and combine it with analysis of real-time feedback from rock measurements surrounding the drill bit to let operators steer the trajectory in real-time.

Many of the advances that have been harnessed could legitimately be described as pioneering in the technology of sensing, big-data, simulation and automation. These are the key technologies underpinning the 4th industrial revolution. Exploration got there first.

In my work with small companies seeking investment I continue to see a slew of new start-ups with fancy seismic algorithms claiming to be able to spot even more obscure sources of previously unidentified hydrocarbons. Maybe they work. Who cares?

In my view the major gains from the 4th Industrial Revolution have already been captured in exploration. Perhaps we are close to entering an era of more stable oil prices – driven by: elasticity of supply from shale; abundant reserves released from both tight reservoirs and hydrates; and managed demand through smart technology, electric drive-trains, renewable generation and batteries. So the commercial pressure to find obscure resource pools may have gone.

In the North sea there are over 300 pools of hydrocarbons already discovered but not yet developed [LINK]. So the question is: even if the new technologies are successful will they have a significant impact for operators? I suspect the answer is no.

New algorithms and systems may provide marginal gains around the edges of existing fields and provide additional in-fill development opportunities. They may reduce the number of people in G&G dept 10%. Commodification of techniques (as happened for 3D animation) may see the demise of some companies and job-roles. But I don’t think it’s going to provide a revolutionary impact. Of course, I may be wrong.

If I am right, this suggests that there will be two main opportunities for companies providing technology here – either to provide an “add-on” to the main interpretation platforms (Petrel, OpenWorks) and then sell small numbers of seats to operators in special circumstances, or attempt a wholescale assault to replace the platforms already in place. Neither of these are revolutionary for operators and result in minor cost reduction by pitting service company against service company.

I think the 4th industrial revolution is likely to provide only a small impact on the dynamics of this part of the value-chain. There may be a displacement of revenue from one software vendor to another, there may be some marginal in-fill development opportunities that will add more elasticity to oil supply (and help to further stabalise prices) but neither of those are going to be massive nor revolutionary. I think that the 4th Industrial Revolution gains have been captured already – AI, auto-pickers, attribute statistics, simulations, integration, cloud, geolocation, computing power in the hands of individuals – the main technologies are already in place. Gains from here-on-in will be marginal.

There is one thing that may change my view, however. If this happens it will have a profound impact and swing power towards the national resource owners. If these innovations are adopted at the level of the nation state things may change.

National Data Banks were established in the 1990’s (example LINK) to hold archives of seismic and well data and make them publicly available. These may get a boost.  Cloud technology and on-line AI-based mining-algorithms may change the way that license economics work by de-risking exploration and encouraging competition. If this is combined with a stable oil price there is a potential recipe for reduction in the incentives needed for exploration companies. That could change the economics and the structure of the discover, farm-down, refinance, develop and keep carried-interest process that is used today.

It’s just an analogy

I’ve recently been working on analogies designed to let me talk about Industry 4.0 concepts. In short I’ve been trying to find ways to explain what’s almost unexplainable, and often to a sceptical audience. This is my current favourite:

Here’s what happened lasttime

In 1993 the Internet was explained in terms of bits, bytes, modems and tunnels. Most people had no idea why this geeky stuff would be important or what it could possibly be used for in everyday life. By 2003 it was explained in terms of Amazon and Facebook. Now my mum can order shopping on-line but has no idea how the Internet works. That’s how it should be, invisible to the application. My niece uses Facebook, WhatsApp and ASOS and can’t really imagine not using them – it’s woven into the fabric of how she does things, she’s never done it any other way. Why would she? In the mean-time those that had no idea what the geeky stuff could do ignored Amazon and are now closing their retail space [link]

Here’s what’s happening now

Industry 4.0 is now explained in terms like sensors, internet-of-things, and security. There is little understanding of how to retrofit this into existing ways of working, or why all this geeky stuff is relevant. In short people think this is a nice to have but really changes nothing. In ten years I will be explaining this in terms of its application and not how it is implemented. Industry 4.0 will be a forgotten concept and we’ll be talking about its various applications – like operating and maintaining according to equipment condition. In 20 years time a maintenance engineer (like my niece does with Facebook) will have no concept of why you would (or even could) operate equipment without on-line condition monitoring, system level surveillance, and connected “helper applications” that learn from global failure modes. Why would she?

But surely we’ve already been here?

I normally get an objection at this point along the lines of this:

“We’ve had digital oilfield for years, and it’s promised a lot, cost a lot and not delivered much – why will this be different, why should I think there will be a change.”

In my view, things no longer change incrementally when platforms become ubiquitous and costs tumble 1,000 times. They “take off”. That’s what’s occurring now. Add to these exponential technologies such as machine learning (which self-improve with time and experience) and t the stage is set for big breakthroughs.

Four companies: Facebook, Google (Maps +Waze), Uber, Amazon would be impossible without the widespread adoption of horizontal general technologies. They’re interdependent and co-ordinated rollouts enabled cross-platform co-innovation at the application level.

By the way – If you think these companies are just fluff : Google is worth 356Bln, Facebook 350Bln, Uber 62Bln and Amazon 250Bln. In total over a trillion dollars. For comparison Exxon is valued at 360 Bln.

Adoption Curve is reversed

Here’s another thought – In the 1960’s Military and Space applications were modified for business use before finding their way into the hands of rich consumers a couple of decades later. Facebook-like platforms and messaging applications such as Skype emerged first in the consumer space before being adapted for corporate deployment.

I think this mode of adoption is now true for application level innovation generally. If this is so for our next wave application innovation for industry 4.0, I expect to see it emerge first in the consumer space, deploy rapidly at scale and be ready to find ways to adapt and deploy in industry. It will be people like my niece that will know how to leverage these applications with no need to have any knowledge of how the underlying infrastructure works.

Keep your millennials close at hand; you’ll need their insights.

Image Credit http://parterre.com/2011/12/01/interrrupted-analogy/

 

 

Innovation and productivity with 4th Industrial Revolution

This is a long post. There is a lot to understand on this topic and this is the primer you’ll need. Please do follow the links. It will take a while but it’ll be worth it.

There is much being discussed around the acceleration of technology and how exponential development in multiple areas is converging and how this will impact on industrial production. About time too really because productivity is failing to pick-up, interest rates at or below zero, cash being hoarded by companies and investment rates are low [link]. This exponential increase is actually not that new – Moore’s law’s been around since… well since Moore launched Intel, and it was a one-way flow before even Schottky was on the scene. These trends are not new and if you don’t believe me here’s a great talk from 11 years ago by Ray Kurzweil with lots of evidence and predictions [Link]. Even Bill Gates saw this in a book he published in 1999 called Business @ the Speed of Thought [link], though these days that speed would be seen as a little too slow.

In my opinion the Oil industry harnessed many of the aspects of this movement in upstream exploration during the 1990’s. It was an early adopter in the process of FINDING reserves. Then the process of adoption stopped. Productivity per geoscientist and the complexity of the information they deal with is orders of magnitude better than it was during the last oil-bust of 1986, so much so that we now have more fields and deposits than we know what to do with. We’re pretty good at finding the stuff. But we’re quite rubbish at developing and operating it at low cost – especially small deposits, which we are so good at spotting now. Development, Operations & Maintenance has ossified – contracts and work practices are stuck. From an operator approach, the production of hydrocarbons has barely moved since the early 90’s (FPSO concepts aside). In my opinion through outsourcing, procurement, short-termism and misalignment of incentives it has become positively petrified.

If the Fourth Industrial Revolution is really going to have an impact we’ll need to address development on four fronts: Economic, Social, Political, and Technical

Economics

If this is going to happen then it has got to make sense for the bottom line. That means productivity: outputs, inputs and the cost of technology. McKinsey, recently cited in Industries of the Future, by Alec Ross [Link], suggested that the manufacturing sector could raise productivity by 2.5% to 5% and save more than $1Trillion in cost annually.

In one example McKinsey says “To capture the potential, manufacturers can consider three moves. Primarily, companies can gather more information and make better use of it. An oil-exploration company collected more than 30,000 pieces of data from each of its drilling rigs—yet 99 percent of that data was lost due to problems of data transmission, storage, and architecture. The tiny trickle of data it did capture was incredibly useful for managers. But so much more can be done. The executives we surveyed said that correcting these data inefficiencies should improve productivity by about 25 percent. [Link]”

Of course some traditional economists think we’re doomed to no innovation and permanent low growth – such as Robert Gordon [Link]. There are many in the old-guard of Oil and Gas that would agree. Most of them have their secretaries print their emails out for them, and refuse to carry a smart phone. Good luck chaps, I think you’ll find the millennials don’t care what you think anymore. Others say differently [Link]

There are many big hitters with some very big numbers, they’re all pointing in the same direction. I’m backing the future, not the past. And I think that Industry 4.0 will feature in the future of Oil and Gas. There are challenges but the prize is big enough that we will overcome them.

Social

The way that many of us work is going to have to change. Luckily the Millennials are already preparing for this shift with their search for meaningful work, emphasis on creativity and individuality; and understanding that they can blend their work and leisure time in ways that the crumbly generation see as slacking and entitled. Forbes have a top ten ways in which the work place will be influenced [Link] and Linda Grattan has her views here [Link]. For me it just seems an obvious way to work. But then I’ve never been very good at dealing with routine, structure and command-and-control. It’ll be interesting to see how we can blend the command-and-control requirements of operations with the caffeine fuelled micro-attention span of people even more “wired” than me.

We’re also seeing cyber-social developments such as the creative commons movement [Link] and open source projects like the Arduino [Link] all of which are fuelling exponential cross-fertilisation of ideas. We are witnessing the rise of the sharing economy [link] and temporary configurations of people who move about often. These are all challenging assumptions about ownership and permanence that are at odds with our current ownership-model for resources.

Political

The Guardian in Nov 2015 reported that ” this revolution could leave up to 35% of all workers in the UK, and 47% of those in the US, at risk of being displaced by technology over the next 20 years, according to Oxford University research cited in the report, with job losses likely to be concentrated at the bottom of the income scale.” [link]

With modern communications and the ability to mobilise quickly we’ve already seen massive changes in the way the people (or, in Greek, demos) interact with conventional democratic systems and capitalism. This is very thoughtful piece by Yanis Varoufakis the recently deposed Greek finance minister [link]. Whether that’s the Arab spring, so-called ISIS, Brexit, the mass-migration of populations or the astonishing rise of Donald Trump, things are getting decidedly odd in traditional politics. There’s a lot of complaint and not a lot of traditional power that can be exercised in public anymore [link]. Just take a look at the mass-mobilisation of a Brazilian flash-mob to protest graft allegations levied against the establishment [link]

Cyber-politics is a whole new dimension. Whether cyber aggression is aimed at accessing private information, denying or altering the dissemination of information or compromising the physical integrity of machine-based systems the ability of people to alter the course of events through “hacking” has never been so great. China has its infamous PLA unit 61398 [Link] one of over 20 cyber-military units it controls, North Korea doesn’t like Sony much as the 2014 hack showed [Link], Iran might be the land of the rising Shamoon that hit Aramco [Link], Ukraine has got on the wrong side of Russian Hackers who shut off their power grid [Link], and who knows who might have written Stuxnet that took out the Iranian centrifuges while telling the control room all was normal [Link]? Now the actors are not only nation-states, but also corporations and little boys alone in their bedrooms [link]

We have the Geneva convention that is supposed to stop states shooting the red cross, bombing civilians, gassing troops and firing mercury-filled dumb-dumbs. We have the international court in The Hague (funded by Andrew Carnegie incidentally [link]) that prosecutes war criminals. I’m not sure who I should call if North Korea invades my X-Box or steals my Bitcoins. And if you are a corporation with cross-border operations you don’t either.

Technical

There are a number of technologies that are developing exponentially at the moment and they’re feeding into changed ways-of-working that will bring about the fourth industrial revolution. Ultimately this will help you plan to build better plant and it will help you operate what you have better. Optimising operations is a sense-and-respond problem. Prepare for the future, know what’s going on right now and do things to make it better. Technology that helps falls into four areas that increase:

  • learning about what’s possible;
  • what’s going on right now and situational awareness;
  • knowledge of interdependence, decision options and consequence; and
  • ability to execute quickly and accurately

Increased learning about what is possible

Big data has gained traction in the last decade. Grab lots of data from everywhere, apply some Bayesian stats, set a base-level and determine the probability of correlation. Works really well when you buy a book from Amazon and it suggests that you might want to buy some reading glasses to go with it. Works pretty well in finding potential hidden relationships and developing predictive algorithms for equipment failure too [link] [link]

Like a lot of developments, this area is moving fast. How do you know what’s even possible these days? It’s so hard to keep up. Data overload, over-stimulation, who even has time to read this stuff?

I remember Schlumberger creating an amazing “portal” called the hub [link], Other companies did similar [link]. Initiatives were started to capture the learnings from each employee and make them available to all other employees. I even heard a talk once describing the use of retiree mentors to help existing employees [link]. People were planning for “The Big Crew Change” when the aging workers retire and new low people come on board [link]. This all tied into concepts like “Hive Minds” which were popular in the 90’s [link].

Well “The Big Crew Change” became the “The Big Layoff” when oil prices crashed in 2014. All that experience and knowledge was not on the balance sheet but was on the P&L. So it was fired without financial impairment and write-off. But the fundamental problem remained, and probably got worse. So much to know, so much to learn and no time to do it. Welcome to one of the drivers that will build demand for machine learning.

Machines can analyse masses of information much quicker than humans can. Up until recently, however, doing that in context and to derive meaning from them has been hard. Development has been showcased by game-playing computers such as Deep Blue for Chess [link], then Watson for Jeopardy [link], and most recently a Google built machine – AlphaGo for GO [Link].

Combine learning algorithms with connected systems, however, and things get really interesting. Learning requires teaching. Unlike programming in Fortran, learning machines construct their own programs by being taught and from the situations they encounter. Distributed and cloud-connected learning is exponential, one machine learns something somewhere and every other machine knows it. Forever. Perhaps we should blow the dust off those long-forgotten “portal” promises around knowledge bases, institutional learning and corporate memory?

Here is a great TED Talk on machine learning [link]. Of course it doesn’t always go well as Microsoft found out with it’s recent “Hitler loving Sex-Robot” [link]

What’s going on right now and situational awareness

Machines that learn what matters and suggest how to respond can eliminate operator overload by removing the trivial and hiding noise. Automated actions can be taken to keep things running. I recently heard an analogy about the difference between the information received by a pilot of a typhoon (arguably the worlds most advanced fighting machine) and a world-war 2 Spitfire. The Spitfire pilot had dials telling him the airspeed, engine speed etc. All just data. The Typhoon pilot, however, could not possibly cope with all the data available. So this data is assembled to show him only what he needs to know in the current situation and that depends on context.

Paul Smith, former UK RAF Pilot says “Bring all these [sensor and interpretation] elements together and it becomes clear why we talk about Eurofighter Typhoon operators having the ‘Combat Edge’ – the situational awareness and a suite of flexible weapons options that offer pilots a real advantage in the battlespace.” [Link]

Building on this, if the aircraft systems detect a heat-seeking missile closing, it launches flares automatically and tells the pilot afterwards – no point in raising an alarm and waiting! Same for the oil and gas sector, why do automatic fault development detection systems write a report and wait. Why don’t they just order the parts, consolidate shipments and schedule engineers for the next maintenance activity? It’s a small example but Amazon is already letting washing machines re-order soap powder [link], Imagine what Amazon-like logistics would do for the Oil and Gas industry.

In order to know what’s going on right now requires a lot of sensors talking to each other and reporting back. Too much detail for a human system to ever cope with properly. The data needs to be reporting to systems that learn what’s important, what actions it should take and how it should present its findings to its operators. The system needs to learn how to behave. These systems need to be aware of the situation and act accordingly. Cloud computing is also an important vector this mix, where systems are connected to each other through internet, and keep each other in synch sharing learning and preparing information so that it can be shared widely, securely and scalably. Google are letting developers play with their learning platform [link]. This is an area where we will see rapid innovation that Oil and Gas can benefit from.

Of course there are some very boring building blocks that will be needed. Connecting systems together will of course require a lot of plumbing – don’t underestimate the size of this problem, here is an example of the type of architecture you might need [link]. Companies like Eigen (www.eigen.co), Tibco (www.tibco.co.uk), BEA (www.bea.com) are active in this area. And it’s important that we really know that our data is correct – as in this case when a demolition crew targeted the wrong house and blamed it on google maps [Link]. So companies like datum360 (www.datum360.com) and Informatica (link).

Decision making & Interdependence

Knowing what’s going on is great, but what do you need to do to make your situation better? That’s the question that quickly arises once teams get sight of data and information in context. Firstly it’s important to know what the options could be – but also how choices in one system effect another.

Simulation is one of the keys to understanding the consequences of decisions – that’s why chess computers work out 100’s of moves ahead and choose the best one to use now. To simulate the decisions on a plant requires a digital model of the plant and its behaviour against which to run tests. The digital model is sometimes called a “Digital Twin” and this allows you to make a change or react to a fault condition and see what the knock-on consequences of selected actions will be in the future. This can be used to test options and optimise outcomes. Hit the model with a series of possible actions in an automated way and it’s possible to uncover the best sequence of actions and back-calculate why, rather than the normal forward progression. It’s very powerful – here are some articles discussing simulation of plant [link]

Integrated planning enables you to make a decision about sequencing events in such a way as to minimise down-time by running jobs in parallel within real-world constraints. This might mean being prepared and ready-to-act when an opportunity unexpectedly arises. Understanding system-wide effects is the key to getting this right, and with more complex interconnected systems with cross-ownership (like present in the UK sector of the North Sea) it not easy – and the owner stakes in oil fields can lead to misalignment of financial interests. Bain has a good article on integrated planning [link].

So far it seems that human + machine combination provides the best mix for solving problems. The creativity of the human is key and augmented decision making with rapid feed-back loops from simulation enables optimisation of decisions. From the first simple spreadsheets that appeared in business the testing of “what-if” scenarios has meant that we have been able to tune procedures across many areas of operations. The combination is not a new concept, here is a very relevant paper from Carnegie Mellon 1998 [link]

Increased speed and accuracy of execution

One of the issues that I’ve come across is the “precision” approach of some operators in the field. The best plans are of no use if they are not executed properly, if parts aren’t damaged and if the wrong parts were not fitted. It happens. Sometimes, of course, the instructions make no sense and the field have to modify them to make them work. That modification of instruction is rarely fed back into the system so little learning takes place. Sometimes the plant is updated and records not updated. All this leads to mismatch between what is recorded and what the plant operators “know”.

Sometimes the physical effort required to perform an inspection means that it cannot be done as often as you’d like, or perhaps is skipped by a crew unwilling or unable to schedule. Autonomous vehicles are in use for inspection activities firstly replacing deep divers and latterly, as costs have gone down they are found in inspections roles as Drones taking cameras into inaccessible places. Perhaps it won’t be long until we have small UAV’s mapping plant and equipment in huge detail. Here is a TED talk that demonstrates what’s already possible [link]

On-site machining of parts may soon be replaced by on-site manufacturing. Additive manufacturing (a broader term than 3D printing) is finding its way not only into printing of small intricate parts but emerging are the start of large-scale construction. It’s not there yet, but imagine what this would mean for logistics or construction in hostile environments. Here is an example of a team in Amsterdam who are in the process of printing a Steel bridge over a canal. That could change some of our approaches to Maintenance and Modification one day. [link]

And, of course, there will always be people involved. But multi-skilled and informed. Augmented reality displays – identifying parts, performing on-the-fly risk assessments and acting as advisors. This will change the way that operators will be able to apply basic skills augmented with real-time instruction and feedback. Meron Gribetz demonstrates here a virtual reality system that could revolutionise the on-shore-off-shore interface, as well as providing just-in-time information. Here is his TED talk [link]

And if you don’t think a Robot can replace people on platforms – have a look at this [link]

 

 

ITF Aberdeen: Oil 2.5 vs. Industry 4.0

I was at the ITF Showcase in Aberdeen last week. It was an interesting event, if mildly concerning in some ways. Here is the link to the presentations [Link]. The encouraging notes were that there appeared to be some money being made available and that the industry had focussed on key themes around the MER UK forum [link]. Less encouragingly for me is the speed, energy and sense of urgency that was lacking.

I noted that the room consisted of 90% men (often in grey suits) and I reckon 75% were older than 50. So where are all the young people?

I have always been impressed with the approach of Colette Cohen [Link] from Centrica, a strong proponent of adopting technologies from other industries. Despite being a fully-fledged, dyed-in-the-wool oil and gas executive she retains an energy of purpose, nurturing of young people and a curiosity needed to drive innovation. She was on fine form and provided a welcome boost to the enthusiasm of the room while being the voice of reason when asked why wire-guided rockets couldn’t be tested on Centrica wells. Can we have more pioneers like her please?

I am based in London and the innovation and technology events I attend (and the informal networks I am part of here) feel very different. There is an energy and drive in the FinTech and internet sector that appears missing in Oil. Also when I go to events I find plenty of trendy young people brimming with ideas, and there are plenty of women there too (still not 50% but still way better than last week by a country mile). Diversity will be important for innovation. To be successful we must learn to harness the view-points that come from all sorts of diversity: racial, sexual, age, experience, industry, education – and find ways to encourage and shape ideas.

My next post is going to cover some thoughts on innovation, the fourth industrial revolution and what will drive productivity in the next 20 years. But suffice to say it will rely on data and automation, but many speakers [I’ll name no names] took great pleasure in informing the audience that they didn’t believe in the cloud and that they had piles of paper on their desk. When describing new tech there were plenty of references to “if you don’t understand this tech, then ask your kids”. It reminds me of ancient bankers who use fountain pens and a paper diary. It’s not cool it’s deliberately Luddite and crusty and an attitude that will kill our industry. Perhaps it’s time to get with the program or step aside.

One thing that stood out was the problem of accessing markets and testing new product. In my experience operators are generally not too interested in experimenting with new tech, and often their operating philosophy revolves around large frame contracts which means that they don’t really control access to the supply chain. The consolidation of suppliers, the integrated nature of their offerings and the point-nature of new technology development does appear to lead lock-outs and stifle innovation.

The Graph above is from Colette’s presentation. It’s an SPE graph, it shows that Oil and Gas has been great on innovation in the past, and we haven’t had a breakthrough for a while. What strikes me is that since 1946 all the innovation has been in finding or developing fields. My money is on operations and maintenance to join the party. And that will be driven by what the cool kids call “Industry 4.0” [link].

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