Commercial

Integrated Energy Company – Exploration and Production

Challenge: The operating culture and organization model was deeply rooted in business processes more than a decade old. The organization focused on “control of business transactions.” The information systems were a quilt of computer applications developed for different organizations in multiple locations with each functionally based segment separated from others.

Solution: We partnered with a big six firm to implement enterprise-wide financial systems with SAP. Our consultants ensured change management alignment by redesigning business processes, organizational structure, decision-making, and people selection process for seven support and two core business processes.

Results: The Company’s operating performance improved from 4th quartile to 1st quartile.  The reengineering project won the Smithsonian Award for its application of a strong change management program and very successful system implementation.

Integrated Energy Company – Deepwater Drilling

Challenge:   Improve the safety and performance culture on board a newly commissioned deepwater drill ship rated as the poorest performing drill ship in the Gulf. Problems included 50% downtime, 22% turnover of personnel, 7 day safety time out due to lost time accidents, high recordable incidents, and double the AFE (approval for expenditure). In addition, the drill ship faced a new, harsher ultra deepwater drilling environment, changing rig technologies, and new well construction techniques placing a strain on old, traditional organizational systems.

Solution: Organizational and cultural changes were made to the structure, processes, procedures, practices, roles, decision making, knowledge sharing, performance management, and reward systems. A shift in focus from managing transactional activities to stronger strategic focus on a safety, learning and performance improvement culture was also implemented.

Results: The transformation from “the dog house to the penthouse” detailed how The “Drill Ship” went from the poorest performing drilling ship to the best in terms of safety (lost time, safety incidents, improvement ideas), % downtime, cycle-time drilling, and delivering under AFE. The “Drill Ship” became the worldwide benchmark, and was involved in the discovery of the largest deep water oil and gas reserve in the last three years.

Semiconductor

Challenge: In early 2002, product development resources were spread geographically across Europe, the Americas and India, with multiple business units each having resources at each of the seven design facilities on these three continents. Weak project management, ad hoc team organization, and a lack of a defined product development process typified projects. There were no process targets, time to market and product development productivity was not measured or managed. The result was no significant new products in the last four years. The company’s dwindling revenue was dependent on its aging legacy products.

Solution:  Together with the newly appointed Sr. Vice President of Systems Development, the requirements for defining the foundation of the Product Development process were outlined. The process needed to be easily understood to take the organization to the next level of performance and be actually used by product design teams consisting of marketing and engineering personnel.  Four critical components of the process were identified.  A core process design team was formed from various disciplines to analyze and validate each step of the process and come up with recommendations to be implemented. Nearly the entire Systems Development organization was involved in some way in this global change process.

Results:  The benefits are very visible and tangible. In the first year of implementation, cycle time was reduced by 40% followed by an additional 40% cycle time reduction in the second year. More new products were launched in this time frame than in the previous ten years. In addition more than 300 new part types have been released, derived from these new chips. Consistency is the norm rather than the exception and schedules are better managed. The organization is better aligned and focused, business processes are defined, competitive work is highlighted, and knowledge is being discovered and diffused globally.