Workshare and Calculations

The workshare phenomena is a reality of large scale oil and gas projects and has been around for some time.

I believe in workshare, it is sharing the opportunity to do useful work together, into the future. I have grown beyond the hand-me prognoses that says workshare don't work and they are to blame for all the problems meeting the deadlines. It is so wrong! I grew up in the negative culture that downgraded the abilities of others than themselves that could do the work properly. Communication is more than dialect, accents, the emails and cultural barrier. It starts with the calculations, at the grassroots level. If that works and is performed on time then what can go wrong? I found the Indians to be flexible, curious, adaptable and enthusiastic. That's more than I can say for my western colleagues! Culturally, in the west we are defensive by nature and losing this habit can be hard for some.

Workshare teams are sensitive to the needs of the parent project, they often work alone, they know once work is handed over; they are on their own until a problem is determined (and they are blamed for the delay.) As a younger engineer, I experienced not so successful arrangements. However, I have been on two significant projects with indian workshare, as a lead engineer, and they were great successes because we determined the basis, assumptions and reasons for the calculations. Workshare engineers found they were not just copying but keeping the designers, modellers and multidiscipline engineers in the loop before they actively started the analysis component of the calculations. We had no recycle of work. I trained them in small groups ( < 20) to produce the calculations and they learned well. They succeeded where the main project failed and the clients welcomed the workshare option as the path forward.

Based on my experience, I believe countries like India and South Korea has the potential to succeed where traditional western cultures are failing. Workshares are the future, but there is an art to the comunication and it starts with the purpose of the calculations. I think questioning the details of the calculations and assuming full responsibility is key to the engineer seeing the difference between mere copying and understanding their roles. Even in the absence of site experience there is a whole learning that can be put in place. Site experience is a benefit every engineer should seek.

I recognise the tradition of engineers acquiring site experience is becoming more and more rare with the ever increasing annual numbers coming into the profession but it means we need to commuicate more to solicit and educate the readers appreciation.

Workshares are the future, it is up to us, singly and collectively, to make it succeed. Once upon a time, I was surprised how quality-driven calculations worked well; now I see it as a fundemental necessity.