Patent ID: 8914267

Claim:
A method for diagnosing production problems in oil field operations, the method comprising: (a) displaying on a first video monitor an oil field diagnosis process flow chart in a master schedule visualizer system, wherein each object in the flow chart is a selectable object and where the selectable objects comprise Review Well Test Differences, Review Sliders, Review Bad Actors, and Perform Steam Flood Performance Check, wherein each selectable object is associated with one or more incompatible domain-specific software applications from different third parties having separate scheduling capabilities, wherein one or more of the selectable objects indicates degradation of performance of a well based on historical operation of well characteristics; (b) selecting, in series, one or more of the selectable objects in the oil field diagnosis process flow chart, and upon selection (1) displaying on one or more additional video monitors, one or more reports extracted by a middle-ware software code segment layer from the associated domain-specific software applications; (2) listing any oil wells having production problems, the production problems identified based on a production history of each well, the listing including the well for which degradation of performance is indicated; (3) displaying any problem oil wells on an oil field map via a geographic information system; (4) visually identifying any commonalities among the displayed problem oil wells, wherein such commonalities are indicative of a common cause of the production problems; and (5) scheduling work in the associated domain-specific software applications sufficient to remedy the common cause; wherein scheduling work in the associated domain-specific software applications includes resolving one or more scheduling conflicts in a geographical area represented on the oil field map.