Transferring Needs and Operational Experience from Life‐of‐Field to Engineering functions‐a case study from the Subsea Industry

Abstract

This paper investigates how a company in the subsea industry are transferring needs and operational experience from Life-of-Fields functions to Engineering functions, to allow for more holistic life cycle design and to improve engineering solutions. The subsea industry is changing, putting more emphasis on total life-cycle cost. In order to improve their offerings, suppliers within this industry see the need for more effective utilisation of Life-of-Field's needs and operational experience. Challenging communication between Life-of-field and Engineering affect transference of needs and operational experience, hindering engineering for life cycle. To research this problem, we investigated the operational process and made in-depth interviews of relevant personnel at both the Engineering and Life-of-field functions of a global subsea supplier. We discovered that suboptimal transference of needs and operational experience between the Life-of-Field and Engineering functions results in added work, repetitive design issues and operational inefficiencies from project to project. We found an insufficient organisational process, low prioritisation of cross-functional feedback together with formal tools not fit for purpose to be the predominant causes for ineffective transferring of needs and operational experience between Life-of-Field and the other functions. Suggestions for improving the transference of needs and operational experience are presented based on the findings and analysis.