Case study REF#20
The Challenge & Our Findings
implementation
results
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THE CHALLENGE

Drilling Permit throughput increase & cycle time reduction

A North American Independent Oil & Gas Company experienced significant short-term growth through acquisition. This created challenges for their front-end processes, including delivering the required number of drilling permits to keep the drilling fleet fully utilized.

 

OUR FINDINGS

Identified six items for improvement

  1. The permitting process cycle time averaged 227 days, yielding 42 permits per month.
  2. Almost 25% of locations were killed at some stage in the process.
  3. No triggers/stage gates were built into the process to define commitment/completion dates for staff.
  4. No metrics were in place to help staff track their performance and understand performance variance to budget.
  5. Communications between departments were ineffective and relied mainly on email and internal postal service, even within the same building.
  6. Lack of teamwork across the process and a culture of finger-pointing was evident.
  7.  
 
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IMPLEMENTATION

We focused on 3 areas of impact

Established a front-end “location selection” methodology, enabling a structured selection of locations to feed into the permitting process.

Established cycle times for major stage gates in the process, enabling rigorous management of process cycle time improvements and elimination of delays.

Developed a Process Tracking Tool to enable visibility of locations at any stage in the process.

Clearly defined roles and responsibilities to manage level loading, bottlenecks, and inventory.

Redesigned process maps to reflect updated processes. Created RACI Charts, SIPOCs, and Standard Operating Procedures for reference and training.

Established cross-functional working teams that frequently met to manage process KPIs and proactively eliminate issues.

Implemented an Operations schedule linking construction and completions activity triggers to drilling SPUD dates.

Implemented a 60-day locked schedule and 24-month Drilling Schedule, providing a clear vision for rig, materials, and personnel management.

RESULTS

All delivered with the following benefits

Improvement in the volume of permits approved monthly
0 %
Improvement in process cycle time (52 days)
0 %

I must say that I now sleep much better knowing that we have title before we are releasing wells.

VP Operations

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