The Challenges and Value of Digital in Oil and Gas
On this week's Industrial Talk we're talking to Erick Bartusek with Apache, Tom Bonny and Nate Clark with Deloitte Consulting about “The Challenges and Value of Digital in Oil and Gas”. Get the answers to your “Oil and Gas” questions along with their unique insights on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!
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ERICK BARTUSEK'S CONTACT INFORMATION:
Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erickbartusek/
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/apache-corporation/
Company Website: https://apacorp.com/
TOM BONNY'S CONTACT INFORMATION:
Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-bonny-7bab94/
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deloitte/
Company Website: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en.html
Last Barrel Standing: Upstream Oil and Gas Energy Transition | Deloitte US
NATE CLARK'S CONTACT INFORMATION:
Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanielafclark/
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
digital, people, organization, digital transformation, tom, important, operator, conversation, Erick, industrial, small victories, business, deloitte, operations, solutions, industry, field, apache, trust, strategy
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welcome to the Industrial Talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots.
And let's get around once again, thank you very much for joining Industrial Talk. And definitely thank you for your support of this platform that celebrates industry heroes all around the world. You're bold, brave, and you dare greatly. And it is important that we collaborate more and more each and every day. Industry, technology, innovation is happening so fast, and you need to be a part of it. We're all about education. We're all about collaboration, and definitely all about innovation on this platform, and you got to be a part of it. So go out to Industrial Talk.com. All right, we're talking digital transformation, we're talking about the energy sector, oil and gas, and how that looks, whatever that journey looks like we've got a Apache Corporation, we've got Deloitte, let's get cracking. Yeah. Whether you like it or not, you got to be in the digital game, you got to find trusted people to be in the digital game. Because it's going to it's not going away. And if you want to have a business that's resilient, that has some sort of long term, ability to succeed, you need to be in the digital game. And and that's the decision, you need to be finding somebody a Sherpa of some sort to help you on that journey. And that's why we're having this great conversation with Deloitte and in Apachi and talk about how digital transformation is helping the energy space. And once you got to consider and all of the the wonderful, exciting future had has in us in the energy space. So anyway, this is going to be a great conversation. So you don't it's a paper and pencil. It's definitely a paper and pencil conversation. All right. We've got some conferences, the one conference that we have coming up, I think, well, next week, middle of October, it's the SMRP 30th anniversary, our annual conference. And, and it is about you know, it's a symposium of maintenance and reliability professionals, we're going to be broadcasting live, and getting the latest catch on what's taking place within the reliability and maintenance space, most definitely going to be excited about that. That is in Raleigh, North Carolina 30th Annual Conference go out there, it's all out there, you got to be a participant in that one. The other one that I want to put on your calendar is Fabtech. Now we just did IMTS. But Fabtech is just every bit is just amazing. And that is we're talking about November 8 through the 10th. This is in Atlanta, Georgia. And we're going to be broadcasting live there. And if you're going to be there, if you're going to, you know, pitch a tent there. Come and see me, I'm going to have all the my I'll have the booth number out there most definitely so that you can connect with Connect with us get on the calendar, let's have a conversation. Or better yet, if you have a booth and you want somebody to do a on the spot, technology speed date. Yep. Industrial Talk is where it's at. All right. Let's get cracking with the conversation. Again, digital transformation is here. Whether you like it or not, if you're in the energy, space, you're in it, you got to figure it out. And you got to figure out a plan to be able to do that and walk through that journey and be a success. We need you to be a success. That's what this platform is about. We want you to succeed. Everything that we do on Industrial Talk is geared toward your success, whatever that might be. And it is geared toward the collaboration with professionals that can truly help you succeed. So digital transformation, oil and gas, the energy sector, enjoy this conversation. All right, James, welcome to Industrial Talk. Thank you very much for finding time in your busy schedule to talk to the best listeners in the whole wide world if not the universe. How're you guys doing? Great See, I'm pretty geeky about this particular conversation. And I've had the conversation around digital transformation, all that digital journey when it goes to the manufacturing and all this oil and gas listeners, we are going to talk about that digital journey when it applies to oil and gas. All right, before we get into that topic, and then some Erick, I would love for you to share your little 411 on who you are. And then we're just going to go round robin on that. So give us a little background.
Yeah, sure. Appreciate it's got. My name is Erick Bartusek. Apachi is director of global digital enablement. I've been in that seat for a little under a year now. My previous experience prior to joining Apache was all in the energy industry, mostly either in consulting or the software space. So been doing this stuff for a little bit and excited to chat with the group today.
And when you say energies just for clarification, we're talking oil and gas, are we talking that that energy as opposed to some people say generation and that's energy and all of that stuff? So yeah, absolutely
my, so my prior experience kind of covered all aspects of it. But, but the focus here today is oil and gas. And that's what Apache does.
All right. Thank you, man. All right, Tom, give us a little background on who you are.
Tom Bonny with Deloitte, I head up our core operations practice for with an upstream, which today, none of that happens without talking about the role of digital improvement, how we work out anywhere from the office to the field.
A lot of work out there in nature. Next, give us a little background. Nick Clark,
I'm Deloitte’s lead partner for oil, gas chemicals, digital globally. And so my job is to help us all have the maximum impact on our clients with the all the exciting stuff you can do with digital. So it's fun job.
So the reality is with this panel, if if we have a digital conversation, that has not been, I guess, invented, it doesn't exist, because these guys are in the thick of it big time. We'll go with that for sure. All right. With that said, this is gonna be to you, Erick, sort of lay out why. And it's a big one. And you and Tom need you can join in to lay out why a digital strategy is important to the oil and gas market. Yeah, sure.
I think we're I always like to start is like, why are we doing this period, whether it's digital or not. And so, you know, the exciting thing for the oil and gas industry is, you know, producing safe, efficient operations for for an energy producer, it's the most important thing we can do. Right? Be safe, be efficient. And I look at digital as just being, you know, a component of figuring out how can we do that better, faster, cheaper, right? You know, digital transformation is going to cover a lot of different aspects for data process a whole bunch of different ways you can kind of slice and dice this. But you know, the idea behind digital is we're not, we're not here inventing software, you're not an operator, we're here kind of leveraging the best tools and technology we can to go back to that main anchors, safe, efficient operations.
Yeah, what always pops into my head is where do you start? You know, I just, these are not these are complex. Manufacturing, entities are big, they're complex things are moving. Tom, in the world of Deloitte and others, what do you start? If you come in, and you're saying, hey, let's, let's look, because it's, pretty much everything could be sort of, to a certain extent, digitize, tell us sort of walk us through that a little process.
But I think that's probably been some of the challenges the industry has faced is not knowing where to start. So they started kind of everywhere. I'd say the good news is, we do this annual digital benchmark survey. And this past one, which I think we released the beginning of the year, what was different from this time from previous times, we always ask this question of, you know, is digital impacting the industry in years past? You'd always have some people go, maybe? No, this time? 100%? Yes, no one, everyone's on board now. So that's been a shift. The other thing, though, that the higher the report highlighted was, everyone's kind of given this big picture vision. But after that, it's maybe I went to production, maybe I went to drilling. So I did a functional focus. Or maybe I took my one asset in the Permian, but didn't focus ever. That's been the challenge. Now, we've gone off piecemeal, there is no real enterprise strategy that brings them together, say, big picture, what are we trying to solve for? And I think that's the challenge now that I see operators in general trying to tackle is create much more holistic picture. We did some some, you know, some goodness, some random acts of digital who got the content that that delivered value, but how do we think about it more strategically? I think that's still an option a proper
Yeah, because I would imagine how They're there. It's like, hey, hey, this digital things great. Yeah, I can put a device out on this asset and start pulling data. Yeah, I can do that. And it's sort of in the in the conference rooms. Now, one of the challenges also outside of the like, where to start with all of this, Nate. It's trust. If I go out and I Google, like Google, digital transformation, I'm gonna get a gazillion hits. I don't even know. This, like, not only I don't know where to start, but who do I trust? Who is that Sherpa that I'm going to put my arm around? Again, thank you very much for helping us because we know it's important. Tell us a little bit about
that.
I mean, I don't even know. Well,
I think the first thing, Scott is that they're Digital's pretty broad. And so I don't think there's just one Sherpa that can help with anything. And so the first thing I'd emphasize is trusting yourself. If we're certainly in the professional services business, we're here to be the people who get a phone call to help with things. But even with that in mind, I'm telling you, you need to own your own transformation. If you have a bunch of people like Tom and I come in and help and do it for you, or do it to you, it's not going to be as successful as if the leadership team owns it themselves. So who Who do you need to trust, you need to trust yourselves, you also have to make sure this is a leadership team discussion. And then people like Tom and I can help out to focus that conversation and say, where can you get the biggest bang for your book? What should you stay away from what's the fastest path, but you've got to own it yourself. The other piece is that there are different areas to digital. And so to wait those things around process definition, software, acceleration and change management, it's a long list. At the same time, there are hardware companies out there that do things we don't touch me way whatsoever whatsoever, which are also just as important. So you got to be comprehensive, and the partners you bring in to think through this with you. Also, very, it's also the industry too. And so the lines between you where your company starts and ends, and where the next one starts an answer getting grayer, something that we talked about the digital, the digital report that Tom was just referring to, is how the ecosystem plays together. So as an example, for any oil and gas company, they have a very, very healthy partnership with their field service providers, with drillers, with suppliers. And so digital allows you to make those relationships a lot more efficient, and share savings on all sides. They have been part of the conversation too. So no one Sherpa trust yourself.
So that that brings up the question to you, Erick. I mean, there's that decision. Your company said, Yes, let's go down this road. Are you trusting in yourself? Are you trusting in the people around you saying, Yeah, this is where we need to go? Because to Nate's point, where are we it? You know, what's going on? You know, so he's gonna say, don't go there go over here. This is where we have a problem or a challenge or an opportunity. So take us through that that sort of dialogue that you're having internally?
Yeah, I think one thing that I've observed a lot of operators is figuring out how can you anchor those digital use cases back to you know, a value proposition, right, or a real problem to solve. Sometimes, if they're done in a silo is sort of that ideation process happens in a vacuum, you know, any of us can go out on Google and read the latest white paper on a really interesting bit of kit that got deployed out in the field, and you start thinking, You know what, maybe we should try that here. Right? It seems like a thing that's been done. And maybe we can find the same value here. And ultimately, that you might find some hits. But you can get a lot of distractions to write because which ID is going to be the one that really adds value for my organization. I think it's always been much more valuable for for an operator to take a look at those strategic objectives for their entire organization, and sort of decompose them down into opportunities for digital to help enable those, right. So if you're, if your organization as a whole is looking at trying to, you know, be better at drilling, increase production, minimize costs, you know, there's some very macro level themes that an organization is trying to support and then work with those asset teams to figure out what are some of the bottlenecks, or maybe it's not even a challenge, maybe it's an opportunity you want to exploit, we already do something well, but we want to do it better. I think that's where a digital partner, whether its internal or external, can really come to the table and say, Okay, I now understand what you're trying to achieve. I have some ideas on either the problems you're facing or the opportunity to exploit. Now, I'm gonna bring either my past experience or if I don't have past experience myself, I can work with partners, vendors to come in and bring some best practices, but then at least you're anchored to that sort of macro problem to solve as opposed to doing it in silos and pockets. And again, I think when it's done that way in pockets, that's where you're at the most risk for not being able to scale it later. Because you may have that initial success. And it may look just like the white paper you read, but it becomes very difficult to figure out if it was ever anchored in something more valuable to the organization. And so I think that's been a big piece of trusting yourself means kind of staying, staying honest with what you're trying to do as an organization and making sure digital is not off doing its own thing that's not in support of those, those macro objectives.
I might add to that, just quickly, Scott, yeah, no,
don't go. You know, when
he asked the question, you know, earlier, when we were having a sidebar was about like, when did these types of roles become more prevalent within an industry? I mean, I can't exactly remember all the time, because COVID make me forget timing of these days. But in the last five years, it seems like this is where you've seen people like Erick much more come into play. And really is it was all about that building the trust? What's the connectivity between the folks who know how to develop and design some of these solutions, but the folks who live and breathe and day in and day out who need these solutions, the core of the business? Well, that's the role of these digital leaders is really about how do I bring that connection together? How do I build better trust between these sides of the business to basically enable and sustain these for the longer run?
Yeah, you're spot on, I just my mind is, is just sort of juggling a lot of things just because, one, you, you want to do it, right, you want to pull in the right people and white organizations, you know, you want to have that, that dialogue, and tackle the real opportunities that exist in your organization. Nate, is there is there sort of like this necessity to, you know, you define the strategy of saying, Yeah, we're gonna do this, we're, we're embracing this, this digital thing, and then be able to go out and mark it and say, Hey, we're doing it. Now we just need help, is there there's zero necessity, because a lot of people in the field are just saying, Hey, I don't have that. I got it. I got this over here. And I got this over here. And I gotta do this. And I got that they have a lot to do. You're adding you're adding more work to them?
Well, we're dealing with a lot here is a little bit what is the strategy, but also what you're grounding us on Scott, which is that this is all about getting it done. And so a phrase I frequently use is our clients don't want digital strategies, they want the results of digital getting done. And so let's put that let's use that as the anchor point to this, this this piece of thought, what we want to see when a client works on their digital strategy, and where we try to help them is to start with what their ambitions are, and also what they don't want to do. There's so many things and upstream company could take on, they could say, we're going to be the best producer, we're going to say we're the best, most fast reactive driller, we could say we can handle the most amount of environments, it say that we're the best at being able to scale up and down based on economic conditions. There's a lot of things that all based on their business strategy that are rational ways of picking this up. But they can't do is they can't do it all. They need to make some choices. And so the first step is taking the business, the areas of your business that are unique to you, and it can make you successful, then double click, the double clicks are okay, if we want to be the world's best driller, what does that look like? What would that bestseller look like? And be unconstrained. So really, could we go to completely lights out operations on some of these areas can be completely automated can we can have everything concentrated in one global drilling center, etcetera down? And what happens if you do this? Well, you keep double clicking and saying, Okay, well, we know what that looks like, what are the projects we need to get done to get that done? And spec that out? And then go even deeper? And say, what would that costs who from our organization do we need to take out of the day to day to go make that happen? What partners maybe we need to bring in to help make that happen as well. And only at this stage, we're getting to what you refer to Scott about what you need to bring into this, because I'd rather have a client start with business strategy, all the way down to how we're going to get this done, and that specificity and then bring the partners in. And this is very, very simple reason. When I've talked to clients about this, I used to maintain a slide which had about 400 Digital terms on it, and every one of them was actually quite important. But when you're looking at that mess of all the things that can be important, you get lost and you can't concentrate on what makes sense to do first. And so here's mine doesn't make a decision. That's for doggone. Sure. So that order of how you pick this up can be very important. At least that's how I think about it.
Again, it just seems daunting, and it does require an organization to sort of be real and candid with the objective, the objective out there their strategy, but I like the fact that that strategic objective is to get done to do it to show results. In light of that, Tom, do you find it important for an organization? You know, for the naysayers out there? Because there probably some naysayers out there to have small victories, small wins?
A great question, because one of the most interesting things that came out from our last benchmark study was this value. Everyone's like, how are you capturing value? How are you measuring value, and you have different degrees of success. And I want you to keep that word small victories in mind. Because those that score tended to score the lower ranks, were those that were overly methodical, wanted very detailed charters wanted a bunch of give me numbers and date, and I want to be able to point to a line in a p&l and say, show me that value that actually slowed them down. So oil and gas companies love stage gates, you know, maybe not for onshore unconventional, but when I develop offshore, all these stage gates, well, they're applying that methodology, some of them to how I actually deliver digital, so that's actually slowing you down. The ones that scored the best, were the ones who had folks who are focused and working with the core business, the core operations and what's delivering value to me. And it wasn't organizationally, sometimes, you know, there's different org structures, but it's not about where the person sits. But it's how those people work together. And you we had one conversation with an ops manager who was basically like, I completely trust the value. Because I talked to the folks in the field, they say, are you seeing value from these things are saying I get it, it's helping make my job easier. I can then point to those small victories. The reason I say small victories are important that if I do something on improving how my artificial lift performs, I can go to use cases or examples of say, at that point, these analytics, self adjusted, brought up production or warned me that something was happening. So we did we change the behavior. But look, seeing that in a p&l is very difficult. But seeing those cases are very easy to pull out. And those resonated more and better with more senior leadership than the night those organizations scored better than those who tried to be micromanaged to the to the an individual number in a p&l.
Yeah. And Erick, there's, Tom brings up like, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, I
was, I was thinking about his way he was describing it and sort of thinking about, there's a time and a place for the moonshot digital projects, right, that are very, you know, transformative in nature, multi years to accomplish. Maybe that's what people's minds gravitate to when they think about digital transformation is some of those big broad scope things. But my goodness, there's so much opportunity on call it like the baseball analogy, the singles and the doubles, where you can make real impact in operations. And quickly, right. And at the end of the day, especially if an operator is in a position where they're trying to build some trust, build some credibility for their their digital program, getting this singles and doubles, getting people on base with achievable digital projects that make a material difference, you know, in our in our field operations, or any of those situations, that can be just as valuable, if not more valuable than sort of those those moonshot projects. So I think having an appreciation for where an operator is, and sort of their lifecycle and maturity, would be really important. And just recognizing that there's a, there's a lot of value to be captured in some of those calm, safer bets that you can get something usable in a month or two versus, you know, the six to 12 month projects. Go ahead. And
Erick, certainly picking that up. And I agree with everything Erick, and Thomas said in terms of you know, you want those small wins, and they're more reliable, they're easier to sell, they build momentum in the organization. But there's another hidden advantage. We don't know what is actually going to transform the organization. And so when you take one of those big bets, it's a very, very big bet. I'd rather see a client, make some progress and improve this and improve this and improve this. And then once they have that higher level of knowledge and capability, then they know where to go next from there. So it's time so when we think about a digital transformation, we're not just thinking about the transformation, but also the transformation machine. What kind of things are we putting in place within the client so they can continuously improve and do it rapidly? It doesn't take two years to do something. It takes months, two weeks?
Yeah. And I there's there's one side of me that says yeah, and I liked that internal knowledge. You know, this is still new to some Ryan, you're, you're trying to build that internal capability of saying, yeah, now we know what now we're thinking a little bit different. Yeah, that can be digitized. Yeah, whatever it might be, be able to have that embedded in your organization. The question I would have and this is to you, Erick, is is a great got a little victory here got a little victory here. How do you sustain that and sort of make sure that people still see those little victories right and, and they always sort of come together in a much bigger Randers, you know, strategy, right? Just like, yeah, leave that one alone out
there? Well, sure. And it goes back to we were talking earlier about scaling things and making sure that they're not pocket proof of concept projects that go nowhere later. I think it ties back into the resource dedication, we kind of touched on a little bit earlier, but ensuring that there's there's ownership on the functional side of the business to bring these solutions to life and understand how you're going to take something that may feel like a small victory, but then scale it for the future, in my, my observation from from multiple operators has always been that if you can get those functional resources kind of out of the day to day, and dedicate the time to say, look, I'm going to take, maybe it's a production engineer, out of there, monitoring a specific set of wells in the Permian. But now I'm going to take them and say, Look, you're going to think about just how we monitor wells period, that that whole process and the tools and technology required to do it, then they can help figure out both those immediate near term use cases that may be seen as small victories build up that muscle memory of how we go about solving things digitally, but then they can then carry it forward and scale it right, you can also help them figure out how to go, don't be so heads down on just this one asset. Think of you know, global operations, right. And many operators don't just operate in one area, they may operate internationally, I mean, making sure you have someone whose remit is to think about how you can scale something beyond even just a particular business unit or asset level, you got to have that functional dedication, you got to be able to get them out of the day job, let them focus on identifying those near term wins, but also give them the remit to say you're not just gonna roll straight back into the business. As soon as that one use case is done.
It's all the time, you know that it's hard time to you in it, no doubt about it. Like it or not, you need to be in the digital game, you need to figure out how to be able to begin that journey. And I agree with it. 100%. But it always gets down to is sort of the challenges. It's always human, right? It's always churn, there's people coming and going and all of this stuff. And I, I liked the fact that if you elevate the digital journey, the transformation and the digitization of your business, and you have an at a high enough level, then there's some stability with the strategy, but how do you deal with this sort of how do you educate, read, you know, re educate whatever the terms are out there? What do we do?
So the biggest thing that I think we've opportunity, whenever I think about things, is you actually go out to the field, and you work with them hand in hand to deploy and do the change management. It's not about headquarters sending things and just saying, hey, adoption, you have folks who have been working this and I mean, I've done these, it's called you take a ride along out one of these assets and all that and they're like, Well, I've been doing this 20 years, 30 years, that's how we've always done it, why do I need to change it, I get my nice little paper book and I up there and I write numbers on it. And we did work with one client, call it five years ago. And we did a bunch of these ride alongs. And the very first one I did the individual says I was like, alright, you know, let's see a day in the life of what is it like for you out there? And I was like, Hey, if you think about everything that you've got, how can we do things differently? And you know, eventually get straight to the what type of tools or anything like that. And he's like God, nothing. So people, that's all I need more. I'm like, alright, well, that's not, that's not the main way to solve this. But then once you got to other people could think a little differently. Because he was he's an example of the old school mindset. But then we start working with a few other folks who also realized that technology is changing. The ability to capture data and use data is changing. Those folks are the ones same exact folks. But those are the ones you work on and say, Well, what do you need? How could you think differently. And a lot of these are, even if some of them who've been working there for 20 years, or some who have only 10 years, and some of them only five years? It's just a matter of saying, Well, if I do this in my everyday life with Amazon, with Google, all these other tools I have, well how can I apply that same thought to here, those are the individuals you target. Those are the individuals who need to be part of your solution. And then when you go to deploy and all that we created sometimes, like digital champions who did some stuff on an offshore platform for a few of them for an operator and it was like on every platform, we had back to back Digital Champions for the solutions that we're deploying. Make sure that hey, if you need to phone a friend or in this case, you can you tap on the on the platform, there's the person you're gonna go.
You're almost have to just make it that simple. I don't want friction, right? I'm secure and I'm warm and fuzzy with my little clipboard and piece of paper. I've done it for years and all of that With that said, Nate, how do you? And Tom brought up some good points? But how do you start to take in all of those legacy back of the envelope data points that are so important to that asset, and begin to pull it in to create that analytics that give that picture of that? Right there that one? Because you know that there's, there's file cabinets full of this stuff. What do we do?
I remember a long time ago, I took a course I worked for General Electric for a long time. And when this course, kind of reflected that it was on negotiating with unions, and I'm going somewhere with this. And the interesting thing is they had a video clip, and it was a union leader who was like, I was talking about working collaboratively with the field and headquarters. And the statement from the union leader was that for 20 years, you've had my back. And if you just come a little further, you could have had my mind as well. And that's, that's how I personally pick it up. Then nobody knows the field better than the field. Nobody knows. The equipment and the person who's worked on it, listen to it knows literally how things are supposed to smell. And so the other piece of it as we think about it, I've rarely met the people who sit there and say, you know, I've got my clipboard, and that's good enough, right, I'm able to go home and border anything in my kitchen, by speaking a few magic words, and Amazon makes it up here. And I think my job shouldn't be like that. So that I find it more helpful. And people know who the people are, who are innovative, who want to change, you're interested in new stuff, this advances their careers, this makes things better, these people wouldn't be in their jobs, watching the most important assets that companies got, if they didn't care, and they didn't want to do good things. It's good point. So I think the easiest thing is you have to talk to them, show them how this works. There'll be some doubts, there'll be some questions and those deservedly so. But those are actually be questions to get, because sometimes half those questions meet lack of knowledge, half this question is going to be like, Oh, we didn't think of that. That's a good point, we really should incorporate that as well.
I think it has to happen now. And I, you know, I can't speak for the workforce. I can't i All I know is that I've heard the term silver tsunami, right? We're getting ready to retire, there is a movement in that direction. And, and we're trying to backfill it with young professionals and passionate about it. To that extent, Erick, we know it's a human equation. What are the challenges like? Like, what are the roadblocks in that sense? Like, I got it, I'm all in man. I'm all in. But there's always going to be that roadblock?
Yeah. Me know, play off what Nate said that maybe just a different aspect to it is, I feel like it's a lot easier for somebody in the field to have a new digital solution brought to them by a peer, right? In our own life. How many times have you been sold something by a third party or, you know, somebody who doesn't truly understand your situation, you're always on guard, you don't quite understand if they're really have your best interests at heart, or if there's some angle that they're playing. And, and I think no matter how well intentioned, say, an external consultant or an IT organization can be, there's always a little bit of on guard that someone maybe in a production operations role might might have. But that's where I go back to pulling in, you know, their peers into the process. And whether it's making them, you know, the Digital Champions that Tom talked about, or just having their full dedication to the delivery of the solution. You know, if you see someone who walks, talks, acts like you bring a solution, say, I vouch for this thing, you know, this, this meets our requirements, it's a it's a we as opposed today. And I think that makes a bit of a difference. It's, it's all wrapped up in that change management process. But really having your, your counterpart be part of the process of defining the solution. It definitely accelerates the success probability of anything you're planning to bring out to the field.
So from my perspective, it's an exciting time. There's just so many interesting, and there's a philosophy there, right? There's a speed at which all of this stuff is happening. Right? And for me, it's hard for me, is that good? Is that is that good? It requires that that that leadership would be saying, Okay, this is where we're going, let's bring some people in, let's get the you know, the victories hear the small victories which let's get it let's start building and the bottom line is that companies need to do this. Just do it's not a it's not a it's not an option. So you do need to do this okay, we're gonna have to wrap it up. Before we depart. Let's say somebody wants to get a hold of you, Erick, how would they do that?
Yeah, I can share my my work email, but it's Erick.bartuske@apachicorp.com
Excellent, Tom, how did they get a hold of you?
Tbonny at all. I've come or you head online and look at any of our articles there on this project here, you'll find my email as well as Nate's from with me share his
most digital solutions. Just Google, and I'll come up but any corporate
add your name? Well it's digital solutions
not that but you know, if you look Tom Bonney digital you're gonna find Tom You can google Erick Apache digital you're gonna find Erick and same for me so and I'm sure the same for you scout we're gonna turn you into Mr. Digital here as well
Oh yeah, yeah. Yay because I'm telling you I love it I do I love I just love where it's going I love the conversation I you know and and for me personally there's a speed and it's exciting, right? If I was young had more hair I would be all in man I'd be all in. All right you guys were absolutely spectacular. I really appreciate it. All right listeners, we're gonna wrap it up on the other side, we're gonna have all the contact information for Tom, Nate, and definitely Erick, out on Industrial Talk. So stay tuned, we will be right back.
You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network.
All right, once again, thank you very much for joining Industrial Talk and for your support. A hearty thank you to Nate, Erick and Tom. And talking about digital transformation in the oil and gas and energy space important you need to be in the digital transformation game. You need Sherpas, you need trusted individuals to help you along with that journey. That's what this platform is about highlighting people like Deloitte and Apache and and making sure that you have everything you need to be successful, at least have a direction of some sort. So thank you to Deloitte thank you to Apache for being on Industrial Talk. Again, next week. This is I want to say October 17, through the 20th. It's a little short turnaround. But this is SMRP 30, of annual conference, and we were going to be broadcasting there. And if you're in the reliability and maintenance space, and you're finding yourself at the SMB RP event, look us up. You can't miss us. We'll have all the lights and the cameras and everything like that. So let's have a conversation. And the other one is of course, Fabtech, which is next month. Let me sort of pull this up. This is in Atlanta, Georgia, November 8 through the 10th. Yeah, November 8, through the 10th. We couldn't be you're going to be in Fabtech. And in fact, we're going to have out on Industrial Talk the booth number and all that good stuff. Look us up. Let's have a conversation. Let's and if anything at a minimum say Hey, Scott, we have a booth. Can you come on by and talk about our tech? Yes, we can. And that'd be a lot of fun too, as well. We'll just get that turned around. All right. Be bold, be brave, daring, greatly hanging out with people like Tom, like Nate, like Erick, and you're going to change the world because we need you. We need you to be a success. You need to collaborate, you need to innovate and definitely you need to educate as much as you possibly can because we need you. That's what this platform is all about. Thank you very much. We're going to have another great conversation shortly. So do not go away. We will be right back.
Transcript
welcome to the Industrial Talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots.
And let's get around once again, thank you very much for joining Industrial Talk. And definitely thank you for your support of this platform that celebrates industry heroes all around the world. You're bold, brave, and you dare greatly. And it is important that we collaborate more and more each and every day. Industry, technology, innovation is happening so fast, and you need to be a part of it. We're all about education. We're all about collaboration, and definitely all about innovation on this platform, and you got to be a part of it. So go out to Industrial Talk.com. All right, we're talking digital transformation, we're talking about the energy sector, oil and gas, and how that looks, whatever that journey looks like we've got a Apache Corporation, we've got Deloitte, let's get cracking. Yeah. Whether you like it or not, you got to be in the digital game, you got to find trusted people to be in the digital game. Because it's going to it's not going away. And if you want to have a business that's resilient, that has some sort of long term, ability to succeed, you need to be in the digital game. And and that's the decision, you need to be finding somebody a Sherpa of some sort to help you on that journey. And that's why we're having this great conversation with Deloitte and in Apachi and talk about how digital transformation is helping the energy space. And once you got to consider and all of the the wonderful, exciting future had has in us in the energy space. So anyway, this is going to be a great conversation. So you don't it's a paper and pencil. It's definitely a paper and pencil conversation. All right. We've got some conferences, the one conference that we have coming up, I think, well, next week, middle of October, it's the SMRP 30th anniversary, our annual conference. And, and it is about you know, it's a symposium of maintenance and reliability professionals, we're going to be broadcasting live, and getting the latest catch on what's taking place within the reliability and maintenance space, most definitely going to be excited about that. That is in Raleigh, North Carolina 30th Annual Conference go out there, it's all out there, you got to be a participant in that one. The other one that I want to put on your calendar is Fabtech. Now we just did IMTS. But Fabtech is just every bit is just amazing. And that is we're talking about November 8 through the 10th. This is in Atlanta, Georgia. And we're going to be broadcasting live there. And if you're going to be there, if you're going to, you know, pitch a tent there. Come and see me, I'm going to have all the my I'll have the booth number out there most definitely so that you can connect with Connect with us get on the calendar, let's have a conversation. Or better yet, if you have a booth and you want somebody to do a on the spot, technology speed date. Yep. Industrial Talk is where it's at. All right. Let's get cracking with the conversation. Again, digital transformation is here. Whether you like it or not, if you're in the energy, space, you're in it, you got to figure it out. And you got to figure out a plan to be able to do that and walk through that journey and be a success. We need you to be a success. That's what this platform is about. We want you to succeed. Everything that we do on Industrial Talk is geared toward your success, whatever that might be. And it is geared toward the collaboration with professionals that can truly help you succeed. So digital transformation, oil and gas, the energy sector, enjoy this conversation. All right, James, welcome to Industrial Talk. Thank you very much for finding time in your busy schedule to talk to the best listeners in the whole wide world if not the universe. How're you guys doing? Great See, I'm pretty geeky about this particular conversation. And I've had the conversation around digital transformation, all that digital journey when it goes to the manufacturing and all this oil and gas listeners, we are going to talk about that digital journey when it applies to oil and gas. All right, before we get into that topic, and then some Erick, I would love for you to share your little 411 on who you are. And then we're just going to go round robin on that. So give us a little background.
Yeah, sure. Appreciate it's got. My name is Erick Bartusek. Apachi is director of global digital enablement. I've been in that seat for a little under a year now. My previous experience prior to joining Apache was all in the energy industry, mostly either in consulting or the software space. So been doing this stuff for a little bit and excited to chat with the group today.
And when you say energies just for clarification, we're talking oil and gas, are we talking that that energy as opposed to some people say generation and that's energy and all of that stuff? So yeah, absolutely
my, so my prior experience kind of covered all aspects of it. But, but the focus here today is oil and gas. And that's what Apache does.
All right. Thank you, man. All right, Tom, give us a little background on who you are.
Tom Bonny with Deloitte, I head up our core operations practice for with an upstream, which today, none of that happens without talking about the role of digital improvement, how we work out anywhere from the office to the field.
A lot of work out there in nature. Next, give us a little background. Nick Clark,
I'm Deloitte’s lead partner for oil, gas chemicals, digital globally. And so my job is to help us all have the maximum impact on our clients with the all the exciting stuff you can do with digital. So it's fun job.
So the reality is with this panel, if if we have a digital conversation, that has not been, I guess, invented, it doesn't exist, because these guys are in the thick of it big time. We'll go with that for sure. All right. With that said, this is gonna be to you, Erick, sort of lay out why. And it's a big one. And you and Tom need you can join in to lay out why a digital strategy is important to the oil and gas market. Yeah, sure.
I think we're I always like to start is like, why are we doing this period, whether it's digital or not. And so, you know, the exciting thing for the oil and gas industry is, you know, producing safe, efficient operations for for an energy producer, it's the most important thing we can do. Right? Be safe, be efficient. And I look at digital as just being, you know, a component of figuring out how can we do that better, faster, cheaper, right? You know, digital transformation is going to cover a lot of different aspects for data process a whole bunch of different ways you can kind of slice and dice this. But you know, the idea behind digital is we're not, we're not here inventing software, you're not an operator, we're here kind of leveraging the best tools and technology we can to go back to that main anchors, safe, efficient operations.
Yeah, what always pops into my head is where do you start? You know, I just, these are not these are complex. Manufacturing, entities are big, they're complex things are moving. Tom, in the world of Deloitte and others, what do you start? If you come in, and you're saying, hey, let's, let's look, because it's, pretty much everything could be sort of, to a certain extent, digitize, tell us sort of walk us through that a little process.
But I think that's probably been some of the challenges the industry has faced is not knowing where to start. So they started kind of everywhere. I'd say the good news is, we do this annual digital benchmark survey. And this past one, which I think we released the beginning of the year, what was different from this time from previous times, we always ask this question of, you know, is digital impacting the industry in years past? You'd always have some people go, maybe? No, this time? 100%? Yes, no one, everyone's on board now. So that's been a shift. The other thing, though, that the higher the report highlighted was, everyone's kind of given this big picture vision. But after that, it's maybe I went to production, maybe I went to drilling. So I did a functional focus. Or maybe I took my one asset in the Permian, but didn't focus ever. That's been the challenge. Now, we've gone off piecemeal, there is no real enterprise strategy that brings them together, say, big picture, what are we trying to solve for? And I think that's the challenge now that I see operators in general trying to tackle is create much more holistic picture. We did some some, you know, some goodness, some random acts of digital who got the content that that delivered value, but how do we think about it more strategically? I think that's still an option a proper
Yeah, because I would imagine how They're there. It's like, hey, hey, this digital things great. Yeah, I can put a device out on this asset and start pulling data. Yeah, I can do that. And it's sort of in the in the conference rooms. Now, one of the challenges also outside of the like, where to start with all of this, Nate. It's trust. If I go out and I Google, like Google, digital transformation, I'm gonna get a gazillion hits. I don't even know. This, like, not only I don't know where to start, but who do I trust? Who is that Sherpa that I'm going to put my arm around? Again, thank you very much for helping us because we know it's important. Tell us a little bit about
that.
I mean, I don't even know. Well,
I think the first thing, Scott is that they're Digital's pretty broad. And so I don't think there's just one Sherpa that can help with anything. And so the first thing I'd emphasize is trusting yourself. If we're certainly in the professional services business, we're here to be the people who get a phone call to help with things. But even with that in mind, I'm telling you, you need to own your own transformation. If you have a bunch of people like Tom and I come in and help and do it for you, or do it to you, it's not going to be as successful as if the leadership team owns it themselves. So who Who do you need to trust, you need to trust yourselves, you also have to make sure this is a leadership team discussion. And then people like Tom and I can help out to focus that conversation and say, where can you get the biggest bang for your book? What should you stay away from what's the fastest path, but you've got to own it yourself. The other piece is that there are different areas to digital. And so to wait those things around process definition, software, acceleration and change management, it's a long list. At the same time, there are hardware companies out there that do things we don't touch me way whatsoever whatsoever, which are also just as important. So you got to be comprehensive, and the partners you bring in to think through this with you. Also, very, it's also the industry too. And so the lines between you where your company starts and ends, and where the next one starts an answer getting grayer, something that we talked about the digital, the digital report that Tom was just referring to, is how the ecosystem plays together. So as an example, for any oil and gas company, they have a very, very healthy partnership with their field service providers, with drillers, with suppliers. And so digital allows you to make those relationships a lot more efficient, and share savings on all sides. They have been part of the conversation too. So no one Sherpa trust yourself.
So that that brings up the question to you, Erick. I mean, there's that decision. Your company said, Yes, let's go down this road. Are you trusting in yourself? Are you trusting in the people around you saying, Yeah, this is where we need to go? Because to Nate's point, where are we it? You know, what's going on? You know, so he's gonna say, don't go there go over here. This is where we have a problem or a challenge or an opportunity. So take us through that that sort of dialogue that you're having internally?
Yeah, I think one thing that I've observed a lot of operators is figuring out how can you anchor those digital use cases back to you know, a value proposition, right, or a real problem to solve. Sometimes, if they're done in a silo is sort of that ideation process happens in a vacuum, you know, any of us can go out on Google and read the latest white paper on a really interesting bit of kit that got deployed out in the field, and you start thinking, You know what, maybe we should try that here. Right? It seems like a thing that's been done. And maybe we can find the same value here. And ultimately, that you might find some hits. But you can get a lot of distractions to write because which ID is going to be the one that really adds value for my organization. I think it's always been much more valuable for for an operator to take a look at those strategic objectives for their entire organization, and sort of decompose them down into opportunities for digital to help enable those, right. So if you're, if your organization as a whole is looking at trying to, you know, be better at drilling, increase production, minimize costs, you know, there's some very macro level themes that an organization is trying to support and then work with those asset teams to figure out what are some of the bottlenecks, or maybe it's not even a challenge, maybe it's an opportunity you want to exploit, we already do something well, but we want to do it better. I think that's where a digital partner, whether its internal or external, can really come to the table and say, Okay, I now understand what you're trying to achieve. I have some ideas on either the problems you're facing or the opportunity to exploit. Now, I'm gonna bring either my past experience or if I don't have past experience myself, I can work with partners, vendors to come in and bring some best practices, but then at least you're anchored to that sort of macro problem to solve as opposed to doing it in silos and pockets. And again, I think when it's done that way in pockets, that's where you're at the most risk for not being able to scale it later. Because you may have that initial success. And it may look just like the white paper you read, but it becomes very difficult to figure out if it was ever anchored in something more valuable to the organization. And so I think that's been a big piece of trusting yourself means kind of staying, staying honest with what you're trying to do as an organization and making sure digital is not off doing its own thing that's not in support of those, those macro objectives.
I might add to that, just quickly, Scott, yeah, no,
don't go. You know, when
he asked the question, you know, earlier, when we were having a sidebar was about like, when did these types of roles become more prevalent within an industry? I mean, I can't exactly remember all the time, because COVID make me forget timing of these days. But in the last five years, it seems like this is where you've seen people like Erick much more come into play. And really is it was all about that building the trust? What's the connectivity between the folks who know how to develop and design some of these solutions, but the folks who live and breathe and day in and day out who need these solutions, the core of the business? Well, that's the role of these digital leaders is really about how do I bring that connection together? How do I build better trust between these sides of the business to basically enable and sustain these for the longer run?
Yeah, you're spot on, I just my mind is, is just sort of juggling a lot of things just because, one, you, you want to do it, right, you want to pull in the right people and white organizations, you know, you want to have that, that dialogue, and tackle the real opportunities that exist in your organization. Nate, is there is there sort of like this necessity to, you know, you define the strategy of saying, Yeah, we're gonna do this, we're, we're embracing this, this digital thing, and then be able to go out and mark it and say, Hey, we're doing it. Now we just need help, is there there's zero necessity, because a lot of people in the field are just saying, Hey, I don't have that. I got it. I got this over here. And I got this over here. And I gotta do this. And I got that they have a lot to do. You're adding you're adding more work to them?
Well, we're dealing with a lot here is a little bit what is the strategy, but also what you're grounding us on Scott, which is that this is all about getting it done. And so a phrase I frequently use is our clients don't want digital strategies, they want the results of digital getting done. And so let's put that let's use that as the anchor point to this, this this piece of thought, what we want to see when a client works on their digital strategy, and where we try to help them is to start with what their ambitions are, and also what they don't want to do. There's so many things and upstream company could take on, they could say, we're going to be the best producer, we're going to say we're the best, most fast reactive driller, we could say we can handle the most amount of environments, it say that we're the best at being able to scale up and down based on economic conditions. There's a lot of things that all based on their business strategy that are rational ways of picking this up. But they can't do is they can't do it all. They need to make some choices. And so the first step is taking the business, the areas of your business that are unique to you, and it can make you successful, then double click, the double clicks are okay, if we want to be the world's best driller, what does that look like? What would that bestseller look like? And be unconstrained. So really, could we go to completely lights out operations on some of these areas can be completely automated can we can have everything concentrated in one global drilling center, etcetera down? And what happens if you do this? Well, you keep double clicking and saying, Okay, well, we know what that looks like, what are the projects we need to get done to get that done? And spec that out? And then go even deeper? And say, what would that costs who from our organization do we need to take out of the day to day to go make that happen? What partners maybe we need to bring in to help make that happen as well. And only at this stage, we're getting to what you refer to Scott about what you need to bring into this, because I'd rather have a client start with business strategy, all the way down to how we're going to get this done, and that specificity and then bring the partners in. And this is very, very simple reason. When I've talked to clients about this, I used to maintain a slide which had about 400 Digital terms on it, and every one of them was actually quite important. But when you're looking at that mess of all the things that can be important, you get lost and you can't concentrate on what makes sense to do first. And so here's mine doesn't make a decision. That's for doggone. Sure. So that order of how you pick this up can be very important. At least that's how I think about it.
Again, it just seems daunting, and it does require an organization to sort of be real and candid with the objective, the objective out there their strategy, but I like the fact that that strategic objective is to get done to do it to show results. In light of that, Tom, do you find it important for an organization? You know, for the naysayers out there? Because there probably some naysayers out there to have small victories, small wins?
A great question, because one of the most interesting things that came out from our last benchmark study was this value. Everyone's like, how are you capturing value? How are you measuring value, and you have different degrees of success. And I want you to keep that word small victories in mind. Because those that score tended to score the lower ranks, were those that were overly methodical, wanted very detailed charters wanted a bunch of give me numbers and date, and I want to be able to point to a line in a p&l and say, show me that value that actually slowed them down. So oil and gas companies love stage gates, you know, maybe not for onshore unconventional, but when I develop offshore, all these stage gates, well, they're applying that methodology, some of them to how I actually deliver digital, so that's actually slowing you down. The ones that scored the best, were the ones who had folks who are focused and working with the core business, the core operations and what's delivering value to me. And it wasn't organizationally, sometimes, you know, there's different org structures, but it's not about where the person sits. But it's how those people work together. And you we had one conversation with an ops manager who was basically like, I completely trust the value. Because I talked to the folks in the field, they say, are you seeing value from these things are saying I get it, it's helping make my job easier. I can then point to those small victories. The reason I say small victories are important that if I do something on improving how my artificial lift performs, I can go to use cases or examples of say, at that point, these analytics, self adjusted, brought up production or warned me that something was happening. So we did we change the behavior. But look, seeing that in a p&l is very difficult. But seeing those cases are very easy to pull out. And those resonated more and better with more senior leadership than the night those organizations scored better than those who tried to be micromanaged to the to the an individual number in a p&l.
Yeah. And Erick, there's, Tom brings up like, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, I
was, I was thinking about his way he was describing it and sort of thinking about, there's a time and a place for the moonshot digital projects, right, that are very, you know, transformative in nature, multi years to accomplish. Maybe that's what people's minds gravitate to when they think about digital transformation is some of those big broad scope things. But my goodness, there's so much opportunity on call it like the baseball analogy, the singles and the doubles, where you can make real impact in operations. And quickly, right. And at the end of the day, especially if an operator is in a position where they're trying to build some trust, build some credibility for their their digital program, getting this singles and doubles, getting people on base with achievable digital projects that make a material difference, you know, in our in our field operations, or any of those situations, that can be just as valuable, if not more valuable than sort of those those moonshot projects. So I think having an appreciation for where an operator is, and sort of their lifecycle and maturity, would be really important. And just recognizing that there's a, there's a lot of value to be captured in some of those calm, safer bets that you can get something usable in a month or two versus, you know, the six to 12 month projects. Go ahead. And
Erick, certainly picking that up. And I agree with everything Erick, and Thomas said in terms of you know, you want those small wins, and they're more reliable, they're easier to sell, they build momentum in the organization. But there's another hidden advantage. We don't know what is actually going to transform the organization. And so when you take one of those big bets, it's a very, very big bet. I'd rather see a client, make some progress and improve this and improve this and improve this. And then once they have that higher level of knowledge and capability, then they know where to go next from there. So it's time so when we think about a digital transformation, we're not just thinking about the transformation, but also the transformation machine. What kind of things are we putting in place within the client so they can continuously improve and do it rapidly? It doesn't take two years to do something. It takes months, two weeks?
Yeah. And I there's there's one side of me that says yeah, and I liked that internal knowledge. You know, this is still new to some Ryan, you're, you're trying to build that internal capability of saying, yeah, now we know what now we're thinking a little bit different. Yeah, that can be digitized. Yeah, whatever it might be, be able to have that embedded in your organization. The question I would have and this is to you, Erick, is is a great got a little victory here got a little victory here. How do you sustain that and sort of make sure that people still see those little victories right and, and they always sort of come together in a much bigger Randers, you know, strategy, right? Just like, yeah, leave that one alone out
there? Well, sure. And it goes back to we were talking earlier about scaling things and making sure that they're not pocket proof of concept projects that go nowhere later. I think it ties back into the resource dedication, we kind of touched on a little bit earlier, but ensuring that there's there's ownership on the functional side of the business to bring these solutions to life and understand how you're going to take something that may feel like a small victory, but then scale it for the future, in my, my observation from from multiple operators has always been that if you can get those functional resources kind of out of the day to day, and dedicate the time to say, look, I'm going to take, maybe it's a production engineer, out of there, monitoring a specific set of wells in the Permian. But now I'm going to take them and say, Look, you're going to think about just how we monitor wells period, that that whole process and the tools and technology required to do it, then they can help figure out both those immediate near term use cases that may be seen as small victories build up that muscle memory of how we go about solving things digitally, but then they can then carry it forward and scale it right, you can also help them figure out how to go, don't be so heads down on just this one asset. Think of you know, global operations, right. And many operators don't just operate in one area, they may operate internationally, I mean, making sure you have someone whose remit is to think about how you can scale something beyond even just a particular business unit or asset level, you got to have that functional dedication, you got to be able to get them out of the day job, let them focus on identifying those near term wins, but also give them the remit to say you're not just gonna roll straight back into the business. As soon as that one use case is done.
It's all the time, you know that it's hard time to you in it, no doubt about it. Like it or not, you need to be in the digital game, you need to figure out how to be able to begin that journey. And I agree with it. 100%. But it always gets down to is sort of the challenges. It's always human, right? It's always churn, there's people coming and going and all of this stuff. And I, I liked the fact that if you elevate the digital journey, the transformation and the digitization of your business, and you have an at a high enough level, then there's some stability with the strategy, but how do you deal with this sort of how do you educate, read, you know, re educate whatever the terms are out there? What do we do?
So the biggest thing that I think we've opportunity, whenever I think about things, is you actually go out to the field, and you work with them hand in hand to deploy and do the change management. It's not about headquarters sending things and just saying, hey, adoption, you have folks who have been working this and I mean, I've done these, it's called you take a ride along out one of these assets and all that and they're like, Well, I've been doing this 20 years, 30 years, that's how we've always done it, why do I need to change it, I get my nice little paper book and I up there and I write numbers on it. And we did work with one client, call it five years ago. And we did a bunch of these ride alongs. And the very first one I did the individual says I was like, alright, you know, let's see a day in the life of what is it like for you out there? And I was like, Hey, if you think about everything that you've got, how can we do things differently? And you know, eventually get straight to the what type of tools or anything like that. And he's like God, nothing. So people, that's all I need more. I'm like, alright, well, that's not, that's not the main way to solve this. But then once you got to other people could think a little differently. Because he was he's an example of the old school mindset. But then we start working with a few other folks who also realized that technology is changing. The ability to capture data and use data is changing. Those folks are the ones same exact folks. But those are the ones you work on and say, Well, what do you need? How could you think differently. And a lot of these are, even if some of them who've been working there for 20 years, or some who have only 10 years, and some of them only five years? It's just a matter of saying, Well, if I do this in my everyday life with Amazon, with Google, all these other tools I have, well how can I apply that same thought to here, those are the individuals you target. Those are the individuals who need to be part of your solution. And then when you go to deploy and all that we created sometimes, like digital champions who did some stuff on an offshore platform for a few of them for an operator and it was like on every platform, we had back to back Digital Champions for the solutions that we're deploying. Make sure that hey, if you need to phone a friend or in this case, you can you tap on the on the platform, there's the person you're gonna go.
You're almost have to just make it that simple. I don't want friction, right? I'm secure and I'm warm and fuzzy with my little clipboard and piece of paper. I've done it for years and all of that With that said, Nate, how do you? And Tom brought up some good points? But how do you start to take in all of those legacy back of the envelope data points that are so important to that asset, and begin to pull it in to create that analytics that give that picture of that? Right there that one? Because you know that there's, there's file cabinets full of this stuff. What do we do?
I remember a long time ago, I took a course I worked for General Electric for a long time. And when this course, kind of reflected that it was on negotiating with unions, and I'm going somewhere with this. And the interesting thing is they had a video clip, and it was a union leader who was like, I was talking about working collaboratively with the field and headquarters. And the statement from the union leader was that for 20 years, you've had my back. And if you just come a little further, you could have had my mind as well. And that's, that's how I personally pick it up. Then nobody knows the field better than the field. Nobody knows. The equipment and the person who's worked on it, listen to it knows literally how things are supposed to smell. And so the other piece of it as we think about it, I've rarely met the people who sit there and say, you know, I've got my clipboard, and that's good enough, right, I'm able to go home and border anything in my kitchen, by speaking a few magic words, and Amazon makes it up here. And I think my job shouldn't be like that. So that I find it more helpful. And people know who the people are, who are innovative, who want to change, you're interested in new stuff, this advances their careers, this makes things better, these people wouldn't be in their jobs, watching the most important assets that companies got, if they didn't care, and they didn't want to do good things. It's good point. So I think the easiest thing is you have to talk to them, show them how this works. There'll be some doubts, there'll be some questions and those deservedly so. But those are actually be questions to get, because sometimes half those questions meet lack of knowledge, half this question is going to be like, Oh, we didn't think of that. That's a good point, we really should incorporate that as well.
I think it has to happen now. And I, you know, I can't speak for the workforce. I can't i All I know is that I've heard the term silver tsunami, right? We're getting ready to retire, there is a movement in that direction. And, and we're trying to backfill it with young professionals and passionate about it. To that extent, Erick, we know it's a human equation. What are the challenges like? Like, what are the roadblocks in that sense? Like, I got it, I'm all in man. I'm all in. But there's always going to be that roadblock?
Yeah. Me know, play off what Nate said that maybe just a different aspect to it is, I feel like it's a lot easier for somebody in the field to have a new digital solution brought to them by a peer, right? In our own life. How many times have you been sold something by a third party or, you know, somebody who doesn't truly understand your situation, you're always on guard, you don't quite understand if they're really have your best interests at heart, or if there's some angle that they're playing. And, and I think no matter how well intentioned, say, an external consultant or an IT organization can be, there's always a little bit of on guard that someone maybe in a production operations role might might have. But that's where I go back to pulling in, you know, their peers into the process. And whether it's making them, you know, the Digital Champions that Tom talked about, or just having their full dedication to the delivery of the solution. You know, if you see someone who walks, talks, acts like you bring a solution, say, I vouch for this thing, you know, this, this meets our requirements, it's a it's a we as opposed today. And I think that makes a bit of a difference. It's, it's all wrapped up in that change management process. But really having your, your counterpart be part of the process of defining the solution. It definitely accelerates the success probability of anything you're planning to bring out to the field.
So from my perspective, it's an exciting time. There's just so many interesting, and there's a philosophy there, right? There's a speed at which all of this stuff is happening. Right? And for me, it's hard for me, is that good? Is that is that good? It requires that that that leadership would be saying, Okay, this is where we're going, let's bring some people in, let's get the you know, the victories hear the small victories which let's get it let's start building and the bottom line is that companies need to do this. Just do it's not a it's not a it's not an option. So you do need to do this okay, we're gonna have to wrap it up. Before we depart. Let's say somebody wants to get a hold of you, Erick, how would they do that?
Yeah, I can share my my work email, but it's Erick.bartuske@apachicorp.com
Excellent, Tom, how did they get a hold of you?
Tbonny at all. I've come or you head online and look at any of our articles there on this project here, you'll find my email as well as Nate's from with me share his
most digital solutions. Just Google, and I'll come up but any corporate
add your name? Well it's digital solutions
not that but you know, if you look Tom Bonney digital you're gonna find Tom You can google Erick Apache digital you're gonna find Erick and same for me so and I'm sure the same for you scout we're gonna turn you into Mr. Digital here as well
Oh yeah, yeah. Yay because I'm telling you I love it I do I love I just love where it's going I love the conversation I you know and and for me personally there's a speed and it's exciting, right? If I was young had more hair I would be all in man I'd be all in. All right you guys were absolutely spectacular. I really appreciate it. All right listeners, we're gonna wrap it up on the other side, we're gonna have all the contact information for Tom, Nate, and definitely Erick, out on Industrial Talk. So stay tuned, we will be right back.
You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network.
All right, once again, thank you very much for joining Industrial Talk and for your support. A hearty thank you to Nate, Erick and Tom. And talking about digital transformation in the oil and gas and energy space important you need to be in the digital transformation game. You need Sherpas, you need trusted individuals to help you along with that journey. That's what this platform is about highlighting people like Deloitte and Apache and and making sure that you have everything you need to be successful, at least have a direction of some sort. So thank you to Deloitte thank you to Apache for being on Industrial Talk. Again, next week. This is I want to say October 17, through the 20th. It's a little short turnaround. But this is SMRP 30, of annual conference, and we were going to be broadcasting there. And if you're in the reliability and maintenance space, and you're finding yourself at the SMB RP event, look us up. You can't miss us. We'll have all the lights and the cameras and everything like that. So let's have a conversation. And the other one is of course, Fabtech, which is next month. Let me sort of pull this up. This is in Atlanta, Georgia, November 8 through the 10th. Yeah, November 8, through the 10th. We couldn't be you're going to be in Fabtech. And in fact, we're going to have out on Industrial Talk the booth number and all that good stuff. Look us up. Let's have a conversation. Let's and if anything at a minimum say Hey, Scott, we have a booth. Can you come on by and talk about our tech? Yes, we can. And that'd be a lot of fun too, as well. We'll just get that turned around. All right. Be bold, be brave, daring, greatly hanging out with people like Tom, like Nate, like Erick, and you're going to change the world because we need you. We need you to be a success. You need to collaborate, you need to innovate and definitely you need to educate as much as you possibly can because we need you. That's what this platform is all about. Thank you very much. We're going to have another great conversation shortly. So do not go away. We will be right back.
About the author, Scott
I am Scott MacKenzie, husband, father, and passionate industry educator. From humble beginnings as a lathing contractor and certified journeyman/lineman to an Undergraduate and Master’s Degree in Business Administration, I have applied every aspect of my education and training to lead and influence. I believe in serving and adding value wherever I am called.
