Using Continuous Monitoring Data to Drive Management-By-Exception Practices
Author: Dave Levy
Management-by-exception approaches help upstream oil and gas operation managers focus on overall business unit performance. SCADA and Continuous Monitoring systems provide essential data that make management-by-exception workflows more effective.
What is Management-By-Exception?
Management-by-exception (MBE) is a business management approach that emphasizes managerial involvement in matters that deviate from the norm while empowering employees to make data-driven decisions on every day matters that fall within the norm.
MBE discerns important information from unimportant information, and delegates responsibility accordingly. This approach can maximize management’s time because it focuses their attention on major problems, not routine issues that staff are equipped to handle. MBE approaches can streamline decision-making and help managers stay focused on overall business unit performance and mission-critical tasks.
Robust Data is Key to Successful Management By Exception Practices
Data quality and breadth is key to MBE because it underpins workflows that determine when issues should escalate to management or be handled by staff. The more data that teams have to guide decision-making, the more effective MBE workflows can be.
SCADA Systems and Management By Exception
Many operators employ a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. SCADA systems enable upstream operators to monitor and control pipelines and gas well production equipment remotely and improve operating efficiency. They gather data from sensors, meters, and other devices and send it to control centers for fast decision-making on critical issues. SCADA systems can reduce human errors and automate routine processes to enhance worker safety and efficiency. SCADA systems can support MBE approaches by alarming against predetermined thresholds and only involving management when they are reached.
Continuous Monitoring Systems and Management By Exception
Continuous Monitoring systems (CM) continuously measure multiple gas concentrations and local environmental conditions at production facilities. CM systems deploy fixed sensors around a site to provide operators with real-time emissions data. They detect fugitive emissions immediately, localize the source, and quantify volumes. By detecting emissions when they occur and pinpointing the source, operators can find and fix leaks quickly, minimize product loss, and significantly reduce environmental impacts.
CM systems support MBE workflows by providing operators with a reliable baseline on their emissions profile. Once a facility’s baseline is established, operators can determine what emission levels should be handled by operations and maintenance staff and at what emission levels management should become involved. CM systems also support MBE workflows by helping management prioritize repairs for the largest emitting equipment or sites, and involving the right staff and resource levels based on the data.
Cross Referencing SCADA and Continuous Monitoring Data for Optimal MBE Outcomes
SCADA data such as temperatures, pressures, and flowrates from process equipment such as tanks, separators or compressors often have a strong correlation to emissions data from continuous monitoring systems. SCADA data and CM data can be cross-referenced to validate the presence, severity, and likely source of an emissions.
For example, emissions data from a CM system that localizes an emissions to a tank can be correlated with SCADA data that indicate rising tank pressures. The potential correlation between the two data sets will be most evident during an “Alarm Review”. This responsive workflow is illustrated below:
An alarm review is a workflow whereby an alarm is received and a prompt evaluation is made to either clear the alarm if the source, volume, or rate is determined to fall within the range of normal operations, or to investigate further. If it is determined that the cause of the alarm falls within normal operations, then MBE practices suggest that no managerial intervention is required.
If further investigation is required, then management should be informed and a root cause analysis should be performed. If that analysis does not yield an explanation for the detected emission (an ‘exception’ to the norm), then management should become involved and the operator should continue with an AVO/OGI inspection.
Once the cause of the alarm is determined and remedial steps are taken, the operator should annotate the event in the CM system’s log. The annotation should include the correlated data captured during the event so that similar events in the future can be analyzed and acted upon faster, and with greater confidence in the accuracy of, and relationship between, the SCADA and CM data sets.
Data-Driven Best Practices for MBE
SCADA and Continuous monitoring systems each provide operators with essential operations and emissions management data. When analyzed together, the data can help operators validate potential emissions and address them with speed and efficiency. Together, the data sets engender confidence in MBE workflows that empower staff to make decisions on routine matters, and which only involve management when a situation deviates from the norm.