A Comprehensive Data-Information—Knowledge Management Solution for Long-Lived Assets

Abstract

Abstract Managing information associated with extremely large and long lived Oil and Gas assets poses unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Success is dependent upon efficient and effective use of company skills and knowledge. Saudi Aramco and Petris developed a long term solution called Data Services (DSS) to the information and knowledge management associated with the O&G assets of Saudi Arabia. The system grew out of a comprehensive multiyear study of users’ workflow, existing information issues and inventory of data, applications and processes. The issues were classified into common themes of problems. A root cause analysis identified the sources of problems. This enabled the design to focus on solving the problems rather than treating symptoms. The solution was constructed to be independent of data type and format. The system architecture is generic so that the business and workflow logic can be configured by each group without necessitating change to the underlying software. It provides the flexibility to introduce new data, new database models and even different data storage mechanisms as they occur during the long life of the projects. The services are built to achieve the following objectives: Provide a single-point of access to manage dataControl data quality when entered into the system and when transferred outFacilitate the communication between data producers and consumersProvide an automated facility to capture & Index data as it passes through the E&P workflow.Help users in choosing data and recommend data to be usedMaintain business integrity between data inside and outside Data ServicesThe Data Services idea was developed around the Smart Business Objects (SBO) concept. The system intelligence is coupled with data and indexed to form the SBO. These objects are served by generic software components (services). Each SBO preserves its own behavior and provides different set of services to its interested users. These services provide a data management framework for data managers to configure solutions for scientific workflows.