Our client experienced drilling rig delays, resulting in running 18.4 days behind drilling schedule. The delayed delivery of wells resulted in lost production, an opportunity of ~ 3.12mbeod / ~$219k in lost revenue each week.
Nonproductive time (NPT) was 18% versus a target of <2%, 50% of the engineering & operations teams time was consumed with hidden waste which if removed would allow them to perform scope that will help with rig reliability & therefore NPT.
Our client wanted to eliminate this waste for both the asset & teams, they identified the scoping, prioritisation, planning, scheduling & execution of all activities could potentially impact NPT.
To address this, a cross-functional team from the drill rig were brought together to undertake a Value Stream Mapping (VSM) session. The issues identified during the VSM were Root Cause Analysed (RCA) & opportunities to improve or eliminate identified.
These opportunities were then worked by the same team during a 3 day Kaizen event, opportunities realised were: simplification of rig engineering processes & how they work, identify & prioritise simultaneous operations & drilling outage scopes, rationalise Planned Maintenance Routines, clarify rig down communication protocol, rig Engineering funding process reviewed & simplified & support timetable established, visual management system implemented for proactive prioritisation & delivery.
Improvement ideas implemented during the Kaizen Event gave 4968 hours back to business through more efficient use of rig engineering time. This time back enabled engineering to get a clear understanding of vulnerabilities & defects & provided the capacity to address these.
Drilling schedule now ahead of plan with NPT <=2%, cost avoidance of $496k through liquidation of project carry over & punch list scopes.
Reduction of non-productive time & bringing the drill schedule forward brought a $22.8m production revenue gain.
Increased morale of drilling & engineering teams through them being empowered to define & implement the improvements & also though the removal of frustration & delays.