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Corrosion control: predictive power play with Monte Carlo simulation
Jeremy Hall
President Technical and Assurance
When we look to the future of the energy industry, we must consider how we are developing the next generation of engineering talent to lead in this complex and challenging sector. Even though the skill sets we are looking for from graduates today have largely remained the same, present-day technology, education and culture is more accelerated than it was ten or twenty years ago.
The energy industry has largely missed entire generations of the workforce in some cases because the investment wasn't there, and industry chose not to hire during a downturn. This has caused real gaps in some of our progressive knowledge and knowledge handover that impacts subsequent generations.
Investing in engineering talent
At Wood, we are diligent in investing in each generation that comes through the industry. We have consistent graduate programs that we've been investing in over the last 25-30 years. Our global graduate program has also provided opportunities for a pool of new employees each year to have the same experience and accelerated learning.
We have been more long-term focused than the energy industry as a baseline. We are not perfect, there are gaps in some areas that we need to accelerate, but we are supporting our junior resources through an acceleration to more responsibility to fill some of these gaps. Our early careers professionals are receiving support through additional training, access to subject matter experts and mentoring.
As the executive sponsor of Launch, Wood’s Early Careers Network in Houston, I have had the opportunity to engage directly with these new graduates starting out in their careers. We appreciate and value these individuals who can come into the market willing to ask questions, to challenge the status quo and to bring a fresh perspective that pulls insights from their education and personal lives to make us better, faster, stronger at what we do.
Adopting digital innovation
We aim to incorporate technology, innovation and an ideation process into every aspect of what we do at Wood. To do this, we investigate where technology works best in processes, disciplines and phases of the project, doubling down on those successful environments.
We leverage technology and automation in our day-to-day administrative tasks such as conducting meetings, reporting and project management. We are implementing technology in engineering processes, studying the technology available and how to improve it over time.
We are a global organisation, and our people are the bright minds and strongest resource we have to offer clients. Examining the use of technology to improve communication across the globe, we use it to bring execution hubs 10,000 miles away closer together. We engage with cloud best practice, using our current infrastructure, machine learning and different languages to make ourselves better.
Balancing expertise with automation
There is a balance to strike between continuous improvement, which is taking the current process we do and making it faster and more efficient, and being more transformational, which is doing things differently to bring additional value to our clients.
We can't put all our eggs in one basket – we need to spread our investment in resourcing and technology wisely. Continuous improvement keeps us competitive in the market and allows us to keep innovating for our clients, but if we spend all our time on those small incremental improvements, we won’t see the transformational change that we know is eminent. We just don’t know if it's one year from now or a decade.
Upskilling for the energy transition
Due to the rapid acceleration of digitisation, we are creating a culture that loves the art of learning and empowering our employees to seek continual opportunities for improvement. We are building an environment that gives employees the ability to look at the skills they need to execute the job differently to improve upon how we perform the work.
Education and training aren't as rigid as in the past. People can use digital tools and resources available, in addition to some of our specialist functions at Wood, to be more effective with on-the-job training, spreading good ideas and creating a community of practice.
At Wood, we've always sought out innovators. We look for problem solvers like Ken Ede and curious people like Richard Spires who want to ask questions. They are willing to dive into a process to figure out how to amplify what’s working and how to remove what isn’t.
About the author
Jeremy Hall is Wood’s Wood’s President of Technical & Assurance in Projects and a seasoned leader at Wood, having worked for the company for 21 years in key operational and functional roles across the US, UK, Australia and Malaysia.
Today, he is based in Houston, TX and is a key member of Wood’s Projects business unit leadership team where he is ultimately responsible for the quality of engineering and technical assurance, a key hallmark of Wood’s leading market position.
Prior to his current role, Jeremy was SVP of Oil & Gas and New Energies in the Western Hemisphere and former VP of Wood’s business in Malaysia. He has also led multiple, major capital projects in his time, including Chevron’s iconic Anchor project in the US Gulf of Mexico, which was a world’s first in terms of deepwater high-pressure projects.
