Pat Roche investigates the question “Can remote monitoring and measurement improve the quality and efficiency of well servicing?” in his article for New Technology Magazine.
Read more at : The Importance of being Measured
An interesting article in the Calgary Herald talking about labour shortages in the Oil and Gas Service industry in Western Canada. According to Rebecca Penty, Calgary Herald; “The Petroleum Resources Council predicts the sector will require 18,100 workers by 2020 to replace retirees if energy prices are low or 72,000 if prices are high.” Read more about it here: Labour crunch hits oil and gas services sector
Tight Oil Canada 2011 will be gathering together the leading operators from the Cardium, Viking, Bakken and Lower Shaunavon for the first time to share practical solutions on cost-effectively maximizing recovery in tight oil plays. The latest in the world’s leading Tight Oil series, following in the footsteps of the Tight Oil From Shale Plays World Congress in Denver, this event will be the first operator-led tight oil event for the Canadian industry.
ProphetRMS is pleased to co-sponsor this event and will be speaking on oil field operational efficiency, as well as exhibiting. Please join us at this event.
Recently, a large oil producer undertook a trial to evaluate the effectiveness of using technology to remotely monitor well servicing activities. This white explores the benifits one producer realized using ProphetRMS
Advanced Measurements, Inc. is pleased to announce the release of ProphetRMS Version 4.70, with enhancements designed to provide better information and help rig teams do a better job.
For ProphetRMS Version 4.70, several new features have been added to the Driller’s display and the remote capability:
- Consultants or Rig Supervisors can now enter job activities and non-productive time information from computers in the doghouse, making entering of this data easier and improving data quality.
- Consultants or Rig Supervisors can now send messages to the driller and other remote users (and vise versa), adding an additional level of onsite communications and safety.
- The events view has been simplified to start-up pre-filtered showing only the recent rig activities and comments while still allowing the user to change the filters or grouping if desired.
- System shut down and final transmission time is greatly decreased due to data processing improvements, saving time at the end of the day.
- The end of job activity now clears all job information fields in preparation for the next job, making it easier to start a new job.
- Several minor improvements with auto-scaling to the remote charts setup
- The remote application now starts at the Meters page by default.
These improvements are a direct result for very valuable input from rig crews, consultants and field supervisors. Thank you for your input and keep it coming as we continue to improve ProphetRMS. You can see details of the new features in the attached PDF document: Remote View New Features.pdf
A ProphetRMS representative will be in touch with your teams throughout the month of March to discuss rolling out ProphetRMS Version 4.70 to your rigs.
If any questions you can contact:
Steve Baird, Senior Product Manager – ProphetRMS
Advanced Measurements Inc.
O: 403.571.7273 ext.228
C: 587-999-6955
ProphetRMS allows sensor data and operator activities to be easily captured in the field and communicated back to a central location, the ProphetRMS Portal website. We have made another upgrade to our Portal software and a few new features have been added which are outlined below. This article outlines the new features in version 1.21.3.
Job Data
There is a new homepage available for accessing job data for a specific remote asset. The Job Data page provides the user an alternate method to easily access all the jobs and job data for any particular remote asset they have access to. It provides several features all in one page with an easily drop down to navigate the jobs for that asset:
- GPS Coordinates
- Sensor Graphs including multi-day displays
- Sensor data
- Listed details about the job (events, activities, job notes)
The Job Data page can easily be accessed by selecting it from the left hand sidebar once logged in.
You will then have a simple screen to choose your remote asset and any particular job.
This will open the Job Data page showing the general job details, activities, events and job notes.
The buttons in the general details provide links to additional information about that particular job.
GPS Coordinates
This link provides a quick google maps view of the rig coordinates so it is easy to locate on a map where this job was performed.
Data Download
This download option allows you to download the sensor data to a CSV file for use in other application like Microsoft Excel. This has been available from the sensor graph pages as well but was always limited to a single day of data. For long running jobs, this new option allows you to download the data for a series of days.
The download options allow you to select the sensors of interest and the time frame to download the data for. You can download everything combined in one file or split the files into separate days.
Sensor Graphs
This allows you to open the sensor graphs (including multiple days) all in one window for any job. There is an option at the top for master control which lets you easily change what sensors or events show up int he graphs. The graphs will all be stacked that you can scroll vertically to see each day (oldest at the bottom).
ProphetRMS allows sensor data and operator activities to be easily captured in the field and communicated back to a central location, the ProphetRMS Portal website. With our recent release of an upgraded Portal website, we are happy to announce now that our field software will be upgraded to bring the full capabilities of our service to clients in the field.
Several new features are outlined here and a short list of other improvements made.
Job Information
A highly requested feature for our field software has been to allow job information to be entered directly from ProphetRMS remote by the company man or rig man during the job. This will replace several of the well and job data spreadsheets that are manually managed right now with a smart interface connected directly with ProphetRMS and automatically transmitted up to our Portal website. This ensures our job information is entered more accurately and more timely on every job, furthering the value of our reports.
The job information has a number of fields that can be entered for each job. The page is separated into new categories and there are a number of fields for tracking the personnel on each job. A sample of this page is shown below from the field interface. You can click on the thumbnails to see the panel full size.
Notes on Using Job Information
- Job information must be entered before the end of job is pressed on the driller display
- All of the job information fields are cleared when a new job is started (using the end of job button on the driller display)
- Fields from a previous job can quickly be copied to the current job using the previous job slider at the button of the job information panel
- Work order # should be entered into the associated AFE field
- You can enter either the Well name OR the Well ID and it will auto populate the other if a match is found
- If the well name doesn’t match one in the list you can manually type in both fields for well name and well ID
- The temperature thermometer display can be clicked directly to set the temperature
Additional Changes in ProphetRMS Service Pack 2
The main focus of this release is to support the new data for job information. This will allow all of the job information fields to be captured and transmitted from the field. The data is then automatically transmitted back to the ProphetRMS web Portal to be stored and reported with on every job. There are additional improvements and fixes being made to the ProphetRMS software and a few more of those are outlined below.
New Features and Improvements:
- Job Information Entry with the ability to bring up previous entries and lists for various fields
- The Ethernet TCP communication between the data acquisition box and the operator display has been upgraded and so the connection stays active and never disconnects
- Improved the Hook Load display to appear as a button so that operators know they can click to set it
- Non-linear scaling capability for individual sensors that do not operate with a linear response
- Automatic Remote Field Updates provide our technicians a more streamlined method of updating software on our field equipment
- Added several redundant backup files for configuration and satellite tracking to prevent corrupt files and long transmission times
- Modified the Hook Load Limit area on the user interface to look like a button as per user requests to make this more obvious
Bug Fixes:
- ProphetRMS Remote now waits for a connected network before attempting to connect the operator display which was causing a rare startup error message requiring a restart of the application to resolve.
- Several error message from the ProphetRMS Remote application were not properly logging in the data acquisition box to be sent to satellite.
- Configuration import for our field technicians now properly imports the last section of a file
- Very long job notes were truncated in size without informing the user. They are now limited to the maximum length and will see a message if they attempt to write too much.
ProphetRMS brings all of its field captured data (both from the operators and sensors) into one location, the ProphetRMS Portal website. This Portal website has been undergoing many great improvements and we’re happy to announce that we have released the latest version today, version 1.21b. There are many specific improvements and also some internal ones to make the system easier to use and for capable for ProphetRMS data in the future.
Several new features are outlined here and a short list of some of the improvements made.
Latest Rig Activity
The main dashboard or home page for users lets you view the rigs you have access to and it summarizes the information for each of those rigs configured. The table has been improved in this release to have better word wrapping and multiple lines so that the full text and names can more easily be read. The well name for example is shown on multiple lines and the Last Rig Tx shows the time the rig last transferred and a more important second line showing the time since it last transferred. This makes it very easy to see how recent the data is and if the rig is running and transmitting data properly to the ProphetRMS Portal.
New Job Information Fields
The job information has a number of fields that can be entered for each job. The page is separated into new categories and there are a number of fields for tracking the personnel on each job. A sample of this page is shown below from the Portal. You can click on the thumbnails to see the page in full size.
Changes in ProphetRMS Portal version 1.21b
The main focus of this release is to support the new data for job information. This is useful on its own in the Portal, however, the main purpose of these changes is to allow these new fields to be captured and transmitted from the field. Job information entry typically happens on site in the field with the ProphetRMS system and we will be updating the field software very soon to provide this new functionality. Once it is in place, all of this Job Information and new fields will be entered directly in the field and automatically transmitted back to the ProphetRMS web Portal for the pages shown for this release. There are additional improvements and fixes being made to the Portal application and a few more of those are outlined below.
New Features and Improvements:
- Additional Job Information fields for personnel
- Updated Work Type and Job Type fields within the job information
- Various performance improvements have been made to speed up the response and page load times throughout the Portal
- Several improvements to help text and links
Bug Fixes:
- Truncated text not showing up for Job Notes entered in the field
- Events for Acquisition Restart were not showing additional data for troubleshooting
One of our biggest goals as a company and with our ProphetRMS product is to provide exceptional customer experiences. This comes in many forms and it requires us to be very in tune with what our customers’ requirements really are. We not only want to meet our customers’ requirements but also look to take that a step further wherever possible. We strive to leave a lasting impression by going above and beyond general expectations and what is typically experienced in the industry. We want to be working closely with our customers so that they really feel valued. Exceptional customer experiences are generated when a company delivers not only what was expected but when these expectations were clearly understood. The capacity and quality of the company is obvious and when customer feedback is both welcome and taken into account for future improvements and repeated experiences.
Following Good Principles
Principles are an important foundation for any successful person and this is no different with a business or product. When a business is operated with clear principles and the people know and follow those principles, the business makes faster, clearer decisions and can operate with less turmoil. This leads to a stronger focus on those very principles as they prove themselves viable in a marketplace creating a workforce that follows a common path with streamlined decision making. Exceptional customer experience as a principle and expectation that becomes rooted in a business, empowers every individual to put their attention to customers and seek out ways of creating those exceptional experiences.
Keeping the Customer at the Forefront
Customer service is often a side effect to other directives of a business, leaving it second or third to other strategies, which doesn’t create the rich customer driven workforce that is needed to generate great experiences. A business that wants exceptional customer experiences must ensure that it keeps that topic as a focus both internally and externally. It must ensure that exceptional customer experience is at the forefront of business decisions, behind other company strategies, and a major consideration for steering products. Employees who know that exceptional customer experiences are an important focus of a business will keep it in mind in their day to day tasks and it will develop a culture of customer focus being continually in mind.
Seeking Out Feedback For Improvement
One of the best ways to generate exceptional customer experiences is to ensure that customers are asked for feedback about what is going well and what can be improved upon, and are then listened to. This gives insight from the customers’ perspective to those asking and it creates an opportunity for the company to then respond to that feedback by either repeating it or changing to improve. As long as the feedback is acted on, change is visible and this is communicated , the customer will feel valued as their voice has been heard. Continually seeking out feedback and involving the customer leads further and further to generating exceptional customer experiences!
ProphetRMS has been operational for a month now in the field and Advanced Measurements has received much feedback and results from the usage of the system by our partners and operators. We have made many improvements to the software in this time frame and many of those has been in response to the great customer feedback we have received. We strive to deliver the best possible product and this service pack update will continue to improve the customer experience with ProphetRMS!
Several new features and enhancements are shown in detail here and a summary of all the features are listed below.
Job Notes Entry
Job notes are commonly used in the field and they are typically used to add details to any captured wait time or any incidents recorded from the field. Both of these areas have been improved by providing easier access to the job notes entry on each of the panels used for capturing these events.
Remote View Application
Remote view is an additional laptop application that allows a user to remotely view the data from the rig elsewhere on site. It shows the current activity and makes all the sensor data available in meters or graphs. Any system events can also be viewed in this remote application.
Highlights of Changes in ProphetRMS 4.51
The following is a summary of the new release (version 4.51) with many other minor fixes and improvements not listed here. In total, there are 50 enhancements in this release for the field equipment.
New Features:
- Non-linear scaling for analog inputs
- Press top hook load chart to access full screen hook load chart
- Screen Saver activity to black out at night
- Remote view application
Improvements:
- Modify the “HMI Config” text to be “System Config” on the menu/activity pages
- Hide close “X” button on popup messages
- Add Dictionary Words for touchscreen has larger popup buttons for easier use on touchscreen
- Put duplicate activity (End of Job) button in the shutdown menu
- Remove menu access to the small meters
- Wait time classification – always has job note along with any selection made
- Job Notes always have area that jumps directly to keyboard entry
- Non activity buttons like Power Off Screen and Power Off System should be off to the side and a different colour
Bug Fixes:
- Clicking on the scrollbar in the comment screen takes you to the keyboard
- Changing the scaling on the Hook Load chart changes the Block Lower Limit
- Hook Load pane has active splitter
- Hook load color range improvements
- Autoset events table back to top when filters change