Digital Transformation of the Rig Management System: A Systematic Approach to the Application of Software to Offshore Rigs
Authors: Thomas Gabriella , Hjulstad Åsmund , Wersland Erlend , Birkeland Sigbjørn , Røsbak André Ivarjord , Tran Son Minh , Lien Morten , Nordstrand Jo Svenningsson , Ojero Joseph Oghenezino , Odebrett Felix 
Published: March 2023

Digitalization of the rig management system (RMS) into a single digital platform enables a safer, transparent, and more efficient operation whilst disrupting the long-established bureaucratic workflows. Equinor has approached this with user experience (UX) at the core, in close collaboration with the rig contractor and software providers. Several platforms were trialled with a ‘fail fast, learn faster’ strategy. This honed approach for implementation has successfully resulted in improved software usability and a cultural transformation.

Typically, the rig management system comprises of independent components that require significant human input to co-ordinate. This is often managed on multiple systems (some paper based) with limited transparency and a timely learning cycle. The traditional rig management system incorporates several key items such as:

The Activity Planner is a lookahead for operational timings and the basis for logistic decisions. The Operation Procedures are the instructions created by an onshore engineering team and executed offshore. The Daily Reports comprises of an operational breakdown of the last twenty-four hours. After Action Reviews are a post operation analysis of lessons for future improvements. The software systems trialled had each item of the rig management system analysed in detailed and adapted with an agile methodology.

The digital rig management system creates the environment where these components communicate with one another, resulting in immediate benefits for instance:

The standardised Digital instruction format has the user's interface (UI) in mind, highlighting only meaningful information for that operational step e.g., diagrams, videos, documents, and risks. Greater transparency for compliance audits, for example both onshore & offshore personnel can be verified when the procedures and checklists are signed off (with a timestamp) and made active. The experiences and improvements can be documented on each step which allows a live feedback loop to the engineering team. Reduced time spent on administrative tasks, such as following up on wet signatures for paper document and then uploading it to a digitised format, all of this is now instantaneous. Resulting in an observable reduction in e-mails, phone calls and printed pages. The Digital RMS has a seamless management of change function, it isolates the old revision whilst uploading the new and approved instructions. The users will also receive a notification once the change has been approved coupled with an updated digital change log.

This publication outlines the tried and tested approach for selecting and implementing Rig Management System software resulting in quantitative and qualitative benefits. It will further discuss the forthcoming strategy on scaling the application to a rig fleet and its potential interfaces with the Automated drilling control system.