Operations & Maintenance

Andrew Gregg of Gregg Valdés & Associates discusses how digitalization can have the unexpected benefit of employee recruitment and retention based on job satisfaction.

Gregg Valdés & Associates provides specialized engineering document and data management services for the oil and gas industry, from development of major capital projects to operations phase and brownfield projects; they and have delivered efficiency benefits which result from easy access to equipment tag data and linking to engineering and vendor documentation.

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In terms of digital transformation of operations I think one thing I’ve started to see is the difference it makes to people working with the facility. Their job has been, in many cases in the past, has become a bit of an administration job. We find engineers, spending say, 30% of their time looking for the right information to be able to conduct work.

I think there’s tremendous value where engineers are devoting their time to what they’ve been trained to, and really what they’ve been paid to do. And are not spending their time in trying to find information. So the ability to go look up a Hexagon tool to easily see the P&ID that a piece of equipment is on, to be able to look and find other relevant information I think is a way of significantly increasing the capability of engineer to do his engineering work. I think people will get far more attracted to companies which have digitization in place.

I’ve certainly seen quite a difference in the attitudes of engineers who are able to easily find information, who can focus on the engineering part, aspects of their work. Rather than devoting energies to administrative activities. So I think you’ll see a happier work force as part of the transformation.

I think over time that will become a real competitive advantage for those operators who can insure that people are being used effectively. It saves the operator money, but I really think it’s good value for the individuals concerned when they see they are able to use tools that they’re used to having in the day-to-day life. And they can use similar tools in their working capacity.