Project planning and management

• US 8,306,842 B2
• Filed: 02/26/2009
• Issued: 11/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Schlumberger Technology Corporation (SLB)
• Original Assignee: Schlumberger Technology Corporation (SLB)
• Inventors: Peters, Andrew, Rahi, M. Ahsan, Villegas Bello, Oscar Mauricio, Ward, Victor Lee, Narayanamurthy, Vishwanath
• Primary Examiner(s): Singh, Gurkanwaljit
• Application Number:
  US12/393,228
• Publication Number:
  US 20100100409A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,349 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 705/7.23
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/103 Workflow collaboration or project management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/02 Agriculture; Fishing; Forestry; Mining

Abstract

A tool integrates various components of project planning and management. The tool enables the creation and tracking of authorization for expense (AFE) information for a project. Also, the tool allows risks to be assigned to corresponding activities of the project.

Claims

1. A method executed by a computer for project planning and management, comprising:

receiving planned expense information relating planned activities to corresponding estimated expenses for a well project that comprises drilling activities to drill wells at different sites using moveable drilling equipment;

during performance of the project, tracking deviations from the estimated expenses for corresponding planned activities;

receiving risk information identifying risks associated with the activities of the project for each of the wells, wherein the risk information specifies expected monetary costs of the respective risks;

based on the risk information and use of the moveable drilling equipment for the drilling activities at the different sites, performing calculations using the computer to offset risks for the wells with respect to time and to aggregate the risks for the wells as an accumulated risk associated with plural activities for the wells, and presenting a view to a display indicating the risk as a function of time for each of the wells and the accumulated risk for the wells;

responsive to identification of a time interval where the accumulated risk for the wells meets or exceeds a high risk value, planning for procurement of resources to handle the accumulated risk or rescheduling one or more planned activities to redistribute one or more risks of the accumulated risk over time; and

based on the planning or rescheduling, updating the planned expense information relating planned activities to corresponding estimated expenses for the well project and presenting an updated view to the display.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising linking the planned expense information to a schedule to provide time-based tracking of the estimated expenses for the planned activities.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the planned expense information comprises receiving authorization for expenditure (AFE) information.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting a view to provide an indication of whether the project is under or over budget and whether the project is meeting a planned schedule.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving and tracking are performed by a tool executable in the computer, the method further comprising:

the tool enabling business development of a prospective project.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

using the tool to send notifications to target managers in an enterprise to seek approval of the prospective project.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

using the tool to develop a proposal for the prospective project; and

using the tool to create a contract between an enterprise and a customer.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

using the contract to determine a revenue for the prospective project.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting different line-of-sight (LOS) views of information relating to the project, wherein the different LOS views provide different information for different types of users.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the different LOS views are provided according to any one or more of the following:

roles of the users, levels of the users within an enterprise, types of suppliers to the enterprise, types of resources of interest, and types of activities of interest.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

tracking occurrence of any of the risks during performance of the project.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

based on the tracking, determining whether costs associated with the risks have been over-estimated or under-estimated.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving and tracking are performed by a tool executable in the computer, the method further comprising:

the tool integrating plural components of project planning and management, wherein the components include scope, communications, risk analysis, schedule, human resources, finance, and quality.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising integrating a procurement subsystem with the tool, wherein the procurement subsystem is used for ordering supplies for the project.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

the tool sending information to the procurement subsystem to cause the procurement subsystem to order supplies.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the plural activities for the wells comprise at least one member selected from a group consisting of civil works activities, drilling activities and completions activities.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the presenting the view further comprises illustrating activities for each of the wells.