Digital Well Management Blog

How to Automatically track and Report All Activities and NPT Events for Wireline Jobs

Written by Merve Dulger | Nov 8, 2022 7:30:00 AM

Before digitalization in the oil and gas industry, tracking and reporting was mainly done using Microsoft products such as Excel and Word. Using such tools can limit the access to the data to a single, personal computer, which creates a significant risk that important data is being missed. 

In this blog article we will explore how digital reporting using software solutions provides an easy way of tracking activity and reporting non-productive time (NPT).


Tracking and reporting with software

Tracking activities and NPT events during wireline jobs is crucial as it is a part of documenting the life of the well. As you already know, no one can do anything about bad weather. However, when equipment failure occurs, you can learn why you have these failures if you have automatically tracked the NPT event.

Easy access to accurate, historical data is therefore key to identify areas of improvement.

To automatically track activities and NPT events, it is best to use a software solution custom made for the purpose.

Read more: End-to-end Software Solutions for Drilling and Wells - Buy vs Build


How the software works

Using software to report and track activities facilitates a standard way of reporting. When using an Excel or Word document, you can describe the same event in many different ways – and these are not trackable or easily searchable.

With software you can add predefined activities as well as NPT activities. By doing so, everyone uses the same way of reporting and those activities can be used in analytics later on.

Some software solutions also allow users to enter their comments and their own custom activities – creating a space for collaboration and knowledge sharing.


Advantages with software solutions for wireline jobs

There are several upsides with using a software solution for tracking and reporting activities, as well as NPT events. Let’s have a look at some of them:

  • You get rid of unimportant information and noise
  • The information is available for everyone involved in the operation
  • A software solution lets you go back in time and investigate accidents, incidents and failures. This is to pin-point the root causes of the incident and functions as insurance for the operator
  • With automatic reporting and tracking of activities, information handover from shift to shift is already taken care of
  • It is less time consuming

An unexpected consequence of automatic tracking is that employees are more thorough about what they put into the report. They are more accurate about how the data is entered, thus leaving out 'noise' and unnecessary information.

Read more: How to Test Digital Solutions for Drilling and Well Operations


When choosing a software solution

There are a few things you should consider when selecting a software solution for your wireline jobs:

  • The software should require as little manual work as possible
  • The software should be able to produce analytical data
  • All results should be presented in simple, easy to interpret dashboards for rapid identification of focus areas
  • Also, keep in mind that it might take time to get everyone involved


Conclusion

Implementing a software solution for reporting when operating wireline jobs will make it easier to automatically track and report all events. It enables companies to improve collaboration during planning and operations, learn important lessons, and capture best practices.

Being productive is more important than ever before to secure competitiveness in the market. A software solution is a great tool to make sure you stay competitive.