Drillinginfo’s John Fierstien posted an amusing and provocative blog last month on 'why oil and gas software sucks.’ Fierstien, a geologist and long time user of oil and gas software allows that upstream software operates in a world of complex science, data and workflows. But does the software have to be complex too?
He tilts at the PhD boffins that create oil and gas software who often have math and computer science expertise but may lack ‘essential oil and gas experience.’ Too often, geology software is driven by young hires as opposed to leveraging expert oil and gas explorers to drive the software workflows.
Industry itself is at fault for being ‘too smart!’ Highly qualified individuals confronted with user unfriendly software will just spend a few months learning the tools before bragging about their new expertise. The result, workflows that ‘take days and hundreds of steps.'
One of Fierstien’s pet hates is the ubiquitous tree file manager which, for data selection in E&P projects leads to interminable clicking and scrolling. He prefers the Linux Filelight file system GUI and, for Windows, WinDirStatsit. Software can be made better - as witnessed by the user friendly interface of mobile devices. More in the full post on and on DI’s own ‘Transform,’ E&P decision-making platform.