Journey to Extend Economic Life of Late-Life Asset by Developing a Culture of Continuous Improvement and Sustainably Lowering Unit Operating Costs
Our client, operating for over half a century in Southern Alberta, recognized the need to make significant and sustainable shifts in unit operating costs in order to extend its economic life as a producing asset. The leadership team tapped into change agents at the site, and in the head office, to engage the wider population around a compelling vision for the plant and to work with people at the gas complex to examine their operations, for themselves, and apply LEAN and other business performance improvement techniques to create a significant step change in performance.
Context and Challenge
Aging asset looking to extend its economic production life by 10-15 years
Need to create a “pilot” site with successful changes that could be rolled out across other assets
Asset operating in an area characterized by high risk
Need to ensure high levels of HSE and social performance
Need to develop leadership capability and create a new “way of working" at the plant
Operational imperative to improve unit cost performance by ~15-20%, including overall maintenance and reliability performance
Primary objective to secure the company’s “license to operate” and position the asset for growth and development opportunities
Approach
Creation of a single site vision and implementation of the improvement roadmap to deliver the vision
Mobilizing and launching improvement teams and delivering quick wins: Cost Management, Leadership Performance, Maintenance Improvement, Organizational Effectiveness
Redesign and implementation of management system elements for the complex
Coaching people in new behaviors and LEAN ways of working
Improving core operations and maintenance processes
Building organizational improvement capability through a structured, problem-solving approach
Monitoring and tracking quantitative program improvements
Reinforcing and celebrating successes
“After thirty-five years of doing P&A work, I’ve never seen a well that completed under budget until now; and we have remained consistent in our ability to execute at that level into the future.”