GE's Chief Technology Officer Says Standardization is Key to Survival

GE's Chief Technology Officer Says Standardization is Key to Survival
GE's CTO Kishore Sundararajan discusses how technology can help shape more efficient operations and develop opportunities for a new workforce.

When it comes to the oil and gas industry’s most recent downturn stimulated by over production, Kishore Sundararajan is reminded of the 1980s, specifically the CRINE initiative, which is an acronym for Cost Reduction Initiative in the New Era.

During this time, oil and gas fields in the UK Continental Shelf had the goal of reducing industry costs by 30 percent.

“I think the most recent down cycle reminds me of the CRINE era,” Sundararajan, chief technology officer for GE Oil and Gas, told Rigzone. “But there are some key differences.” 

Namely technology.

“In the CRINE era, there was not high computing technology at low costs,” he said. “The cloud and communications infrastructure we have today did not exist.”

As GE works in industry and with its customers toward standardization, Sundararajan said while it’s difficult, everybody is willing to do it to help the industry survive.

Technology Begets Efficiency  

The good thing about technological advances in the oil and gas industry is that they can a) attract people to the workforce who historically may not have been interested (i.e. some millennials and IT professionals) and b) help oil and gas companies become more efficient in their operations.

“We are working with BP on a project called Plant Operations Advisor (POA) and increasing asset productivity on an offshore platform by running basic diagnostics and combining information from a variety of sources,” said Sundararajan. “We can combine data in a way that was not possible before and begin making insights from that data. Using those insights, we can start predicting failures before they happen.”

Technology such as drones can allow for safer operations as well, shielding workers from harmful situations.

“For instance, I don’t have to use scaffolding and get workers on top of smoke stacks. I can use drones,” Sundararajan said. “There are robots that fly, robots that swim and robots that crawl. With this suite of robots, I can now deliver inspections without putting people in harm’s way.”

The ability of today’s cameras to pick up what the human eye cannot means increased uptime and safer operations and flexibility for customers, said Sundararajan, who shared that he’s now able to do inspections whenever he wants.

This is also a bit of a cultural change for GE.

“For decades, GE supplied inspection equipment to the industry. But today, we have to change our mindset from delivering equipment to delivering a service using the equipment,” he said. “We have to retool the workforce to do things differently and think differently. All of these cultural changes are enabled by technology.”     


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WHAT DO YOU THINK?


Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

David Wilson  |  May 25, 2017
No P&E R&D or failed R&D or? Interesting to read that a business alters direction to, essentially, manpower services because, I suggest, they have no P&E R&D or failed R&D, or is it the case that the middle management have opressed R&D or Senior Management are in position because of deserved promotion using, now, aged technology without adequately passing on their technical knowledge to allow evaluation of new innovative technologies? There are many articles published by managers looking to lead using the advantages in standardisation. The O&G industry has unfortunately endured a continuous standardisation cycle for the last 35 years and it is obvious to many, that the practice fails because innovation will always (eventually) succeed due to safety and or cost efficiencies. Noting that usually, the top team in a business are there because they have at some point adapted to change and successfully applied new technologies! - Is the current business really being administered by the top team or has the previously successful business plan been corrupted or was it originally inadequate and necessary change not addressed or impemented? Is it not the case that the majority of inventors and innovators are technicians applying old technology? It is normal for IP to be retained by the employer! - how then will manpower services, who generally do not have R&D facilities, enable transfer of IP to P&E manufacturers (rhetorical)? For the record, I am not specifically writing on GE Oil&Gas or specifically Service businesses. There is much more to the subject and i am confident that soon, the invisible will become visible and a cycle shift will result in a change of mind set.


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