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Document management software companies need oil experts

Thursday, March 20, 2014

It would be better if document management software companies selling to the oil and gas industry had more oil industry expertise on their staff, says Linda Bjelland

It would be very helpful if companies selling document management software to the oil and gas industry had more oil and gas experts on their staff, believes Linda Bjelland, senior document controller with Subsea7 in Stavanger.

Ms Bjelland has previously held roles as lead document controller with BG Norge; LCI co-ordinator with Grenland Group; Department Manager Document Control with Kaefer Energy; Senior Document Controller with Aker Kværner Offshore Partner; Document Controller with Amoco Oil Company Norway, Kvaerner Oil and Gas, Reinertsen Engineering, Kvaerner Engineering, AS Norske Shell, Amoco Norway and Kvaerner Rosenberg, originally joining the industry in 1979.

'My experience is that if I [as a document controller specifying software] forget to specify functions which I could have used, they [the system vendor] don't tell you, not out of unwillingness, but because they don't know,' she said.

'They know how the system works and how to operate it but they are not familiar with document management and procedures and cannot guide you to the optimum solution.'

And 'when the contract is signed, all changes cost an arm and a leg.'

'Every company selling systems for document management should also have a person involved in the sales process as a help for clients that do not really know,' she said.

Vendors 'should have a document controller in their organisation.'

'I don't know how many hours I have spent on the phone trying to explain what I really need.'

Areas for improvement

'On my journey through different companies through the past years -because I have shifted jobs a lot lately, I have seen a lot of good solutions but still feel there is a long way to go,' she said.

It would still be good to have better tools for managing e-mail storage, she said.

Within many companies, it would be better if there was a bigger understanding of what information managers do and why their work is important. 'If this is not communicated with the organisation, we might be seen as a pain,' she said.

'There are a lot of very good and efficient document controllers around and they do a tremendous job, but a lot of them are not very visible in the company. With better understanding of information management in the company, the work will go much smoother and benefits will increase.

It is also common to see companies which have sophisticated information management systems but people do not know how to get full use out of them.

'There is a lack of knowledge in how to manage the systems - how to adjust the setups, create workflows. That I believe is as result of companies not investing enough resources in training.'

Many companies forget about the non-technical information about projects. 'This type of documentation is just as valuable for the company as the project technical documentation,' she said.

'I have seen many examples of fantastic systems that are only rolled out to do a third of what they could have done.'

Asset integrity management

Ms Bjelland was recently involved in a company-wide project to implement an information management system for asset integrity management. 'It gave me a very good insight in the possibilities an information management system gives the document control is set up right,' she said.

If you build up processes around document handling, you get document control automatically. 'It demands that everybody does the job they are supposed to do,' she said.

'We can build in some systems today that are so sophisticated we can make them do anything automatically, with all the deliverables automatically created by the system -by copy paste and click a couple of buttons.'

Suppliers can deliver documentation with all the metadata already provided, so it is easy to add to the system.

The system can manage the workflows associated with documents, and make sure everything is issued or received at the right dates, all comments are safely stored, and the final version is locked so no-one can change it.

Boxes

Ms Bjelland said that when she first started doing document management, the role of a document controller meant a lot of moving of heavy boxes.

There were no standard formats for electronic documents, there were lots of drawings on paper, which were drawn up by draftsmen using scalpels and tape. Documents were typed on typewriters.

A technical information system for drawings was just a register of information about drawings, not related to the drawings themselves.

Computers were big grey terminals with green text on a black background. Reports were printed on white and blue striped paper, with small holes in the side which you could pop out and use as confetti in weddings.

'In the last 10-15 years I have been more and more to the Life Cycle Information terminology, and in the last 5-6 years i have been more involved implementing IM systems,' she said.

You can see Linda's talk on video at http://www.digitalenergyjournal.com/video/860.aspx

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