EAGE - Data Management highlighted (July 1996)

Data Management featured prominently at the annual conference and exhibition of the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE) held in Amsterdam in June. E&P IT issues were addressed in the keynote speech, a Geoshare User Group meeting was held and morning session on data management.

A keynote address by Lucio Deluchi (AGIP) entitled "Information technology and data management as factors for E&P competitiveness" set the scene and was followed by a special lunchtime workshop dedicated to the Discovery project. A morning’s session was also devoted to papers on E&P data management and all of these events were extremely well attended, underlining the strong interest in this developing field today. A meeting of the Geoshare Users’ Group was held on the first day of the conference and we will be describing this interesting technology in a future edition of PDM. Deluchi’s thesis is that only a proper understanding of the opportunities offered by modern day information and communications technology (ICT) will allow managers to "sustain a competitive advantage for their company in the new information society." He further stressed the impact of business process reengineering. "Communication solutions and workflow re-engineering are increasingly based on new and more efficient information systems and extended standardization.

"At the same time, lines dividing business drivers, work processes, organization structures and information systems are blurring and managers must be capable of utilizing the new technology to build a new model of ‘networked’ companies. In particular, they should strive to dismantle the trap of corporate functional silos of technology, data and information, moving instead towards tighter integration and networked structures supporting new business processes throughout the lifecycle of E&P assets. " All in all this was a thought provoking talk, illustrative of the serious way in which many large organizations are approaching radical change.