NExT seeks to fill skills gaps through ongoing education

Responding to concerns about knowledge and experience gaps among professionals caused by downsizing, the NExT program was created to provide continuing education. After one year, it is moving toward 100% operating capability

Kurt S. Abraham, Managing/ International Editor

As most upstream professionals know too well, the downsizing and merging of oil companies and related firms over the last several years has had both positive and negative effects. On the positive side, companies have optimized their technology and work processes to improve operating efficiencies, resulting in improved financial performance. On the negative side, they are operating with substantially reduced workforces, not only in terms of sheer numbers but also in experience and wisdom.

Reductions in the levels of the latter two attributes have caused companies to become concerned about growing gaps in their workers’ knowledge and competence. During the last couple of years, efforts have been launched and expanded by upstream firms to fill these educational gaps. Perhaps the most significant of these is the year-old initiative known as "Network of Excellence in Training," or "NExT." As visualized by the entities that created it, NExT joins together the best in educational practices, the leading edge in technology and a vision for the rewards possible from a more modernized, cooperative educational process.

NExT training model – transforming traditional training methods.

NExT Creation

The NExT educational process was established to provide advanced, certified, distributed education and training on a global basis. The NExT strategy includes an ongoing mentoring / feedback system based on establishing relationships among students, educators and the students’ employers.

Performance evaluations ensure that graduates achieve an initial knowledge level, while more complex learning and skills development are achieved in the classroom with low-risk simulation procedures. Training can then continue via mentor-assisted workshops that utilize client-preferred software and data sets, or through a structured process that allows the mentor to support and observe a graduate’s ability to apply new skills on the job. This people-based, extended learning environment ensures that the student engineers transfer knowledge and skills into competence. Feedback from the field is used to redirect and refresh the curriculum, as well as the training technologies employed.

According to NExT General Manager Bill Cotten, a 27-year veteran of Schlumberger, the NExT initiative has its roots in a training program that the company originally designed for its own internal purposes. "When I was with Schlumberger’s IPM (Integrated Project Management), the European Drilling Engineering Association was looking at ways to improve the knowledge level of outside consultants and contractors," said Cotten. "These were people that had been hired by operators to fill the manpower gap, but their skills weren’t up to date. IPM had created a training program for new drilling engineers that was very successful. Because of that success, we were asked by the association if we would commercialize the program to the whole industry, and we agreed."

Originally, a respected provider of information and data was asked to manage this effort, but that company was bought out, and the new owner said it was not interested in the project. Thus, Schlumberger prepared to launch the effort alone. In the meantime, several of the firm’s managers and contacts made use of their close relationships with several universities and began talking up the program.

Eventually, such informal discussions led to serious negotiations for a cooperative effort between Schlumberger Oilfield Services (OFS) and three major universities – Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas), The University of Oklahoma (Norman, Oklahoma) and Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, Scotland). These entities subsequently reached agreement on the program, and NExT was formally launched in September 1999.

The NExT program is offered by an industry-neutral company, jointly owned by the four equity partners: OFS, Texas A&M University (TAMU), The University of Oklahoma (OU) and Heriot-Watt University (HWU). The company’s certificate of incorporation was received in February 2000, "the point at which we really began operations," said Cotten. The NExT operation is registered in Ireland as a limited company, and it will have an e-commerce portal in Dublin.

The equity partners formed a board of directors and assembled a rotating, industry advisory board from a variety of oil company personnel, to ensure that the program is of high quality and meets the industry’s needs. The industry advisory board held its first real meeting in October 2000, an event that World Oil attended. Advisors were briefed by NExT staff and equity partner representatives on the program’s progress and how courses will be implemented. The balance of this article looks at the issues discussed.

Filling Upstream Educational Gaps

NExT is "committed to becoming the cornerstone in training and technology transfer to the oil and gas industry," said Cotten. Subject-matter experts and educators from around the world have been contracted to develop and deliver course material. A combination of classroom and distance-learning will be available, and both methods will be centered on interactive, hands-on simulation. Associate programs with other universities around the world are planned. They will have a strategic role in creating a geographically and culturally diverse network.

As Cotten explained, the NExT initiative is not about duplicating or replacing existing educational efforts, including those supported by professional associations or government initiatives. Rather, its aim is to add a critical missing link to these efforts by providing currently employed professionals with unprecedented access to a worldwide, integrated environment of technology, academic resources and on-the-job support.

Curriculum / Facilities

Through the resources offered by TAMU, OU and HWU, as well as OFS, the NExT curriculum includes 140 titles in petroleum engineering, geosciences, petrophysics, well construction and operations, and geophysics. Course work varies from 11-month programs to three-day short courses.

Course delivery will include traditional classroom training at TAMU, OU and HWU, as well as at NExT learning centers. Distance learning also will be available for certain subjects through on-line and CD-based delivery methods. Some programs will be mentor-assisted and located at the client’s chosen worldwide location. State-of-the-art facilities, complete with simulation labs, are being installed at each university. These facilities will incorporate distance learning / remote delivery capabilities using video conferencing technology.

University facilities. Among the prime facilities housing NExT operations will be TAMU’s 10-story Richardson Petroleum Engineering Building. The school’s Riverside Field Laboratory also will be utilized. At OU’s main campus, NExT operations will be located in the Well Construction Technology Center. A subsurface integration program also will be located on the university’s Tulsa campus. NExT facilities at Heriot-Watt University will be housed within the Petroleum Engineering complex. Also included in the mix is a fully equipped NExT training facility in Pau, France. More specific NExT site and course work information may be found on the web at www.nexttraining.net.

So, what convinced the three universities to get involved with NExT? For TAMU’s Dr. Chuck Bowman, professor and head of the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering, the reasons are simple. "The driver for me is that up until the 1980s and high enrollments, we (TAMU) were in the business of providing continuing education," said Bowman. "Delivering life-long learning is part of our mission. However, when I arrived here (three years ago), we didn’t have any such program. NExT provides me with the ability to grow a new version of continuing education much more rapidly than otherwise possible. Another attraction was the opportunity for our unheralded younger professors to gain recognition and develop industry contacts through participation in NExT.

"We also welcome the chance to work with HWU and OU," continued Bowman. "HWU is very much like A&M, very practically-focused. Particularly attractive is that one of NExT’s philosophies is to take whatever new technology and devices it receives and ‘shape’ them with the universities."

OU’s director of the Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering, Dr. Keith Millheim, sees similar benefits for his school. "One of the biggest things we’re trying to do is bring more industry into Oklahoma," said Millheim. "Many of our faculty members have a difficult time getting involved with industry. They are fantastic scientists and engineers and teachers, but they (with exceptions) are not skilled entrepreneurs. What NExT provides is that coveted access to industry – we can access a few people or a whole roomful at one time.

"Another thing it allows us to do is to afford to have some facilities that we wouldn’t otherwise have, like simulators in well construction," continued Millheim. "NExT also allows our faculty, particularly the younger ones, to earn some extra money, since they’re not always good at spinning off courses by themselves."

HWU’s head of the Petroleum Engineering Department, Prof. Brian Smart, is pleased that his institution was included in the mix. "Schlumberger and the two American universities got together first, and then they realized that they needed a European university," said Smart. "We believe that they checked out our references and found that we were a natural choice. From our viewpoint, involvement in the project heightens our visibility and allows us to make a contribution to the industry. If you think of the university as being like a knowledge factory, then this is the end of the production line. We and NExT will help develop individuals to contribute to industry, and we think that some of that intelligence eventually will come back the other way to us, too."

How courses work. Although the typical course offering runs three to five days, another example of the NExT approach is the six-month, well engineering program. Pre-course study material ensures that students have a set level of subject knowledge prior to beginning the four-week, intensive, simulation-based instruction. The course has a maximum of 12 students, instructors and a mentor. The mentor creates a relationship with each student engineer and each student’s supervisor back in the home office. The mentor’s purpose is to ensure that the student engineer returns to a department that is prepared to support his / her need to develop further competency by practicing the skills just learned.

As demonstrated by the well engineering program, course work is designed as a collaborative effort among the professor, an appointed mentor who attends the class, the student and his / her employer / supervisor. This four-way relationship ensures that the NExT curriculum remains practical while providing for employer oversight and involvement. Electronic log books and progress reports will be used as learning / communication channels among team members. This mix of technology and methodology, as well as the built-in repeatability of the process, has a patent pending.

A combination of certified industry experts and trained educators, acting as consultants on loan from the universities, will comprise the "virtual" faculty that delivers the NExT curriculum. As new courses are developed, additional experts and educators will be tapped from within the shareholders’ organizations, or from third-party companies, as needed.

A variety of accreditation is planned to be available through the NExT program, including:

• Master’s degree – Available to those professionals who meet entrance requirements, Master’s level courses are fully accredited by the university that will confer the degree.
• Certified courses – Certified course work may or may not be a part of a degree program. These courses make up the bulk of the NExT offering. A NExT course certificate will be issued to anyone successfully completing a certified course. Partner universities underwrite these certificates, meaning that course content has been audited by a peer review board and is of university standard.
• Continuing Education Unit (CEU) courses – The industry trend is to require registered professional engineers to obtain a certain number of hours of certified continuing education courses per year to retain their professional standing. Most NExT course! will qualify for CEU credits.

Oil Company Reaction

With just over a year passing since the program’s creation, NExT is already getting very positive reviews from oil companies. Two such firms are BP and Algeria’s Sonatrach, both of which have representatives on the NExT industry advisory board. BP also has transferred its petrophysics center – formerly in-house at what originally were Amoco facilities – to the NExT center in Tulsa.

"BP’s merger with Amoco and the subsequent Arco takeover have made BP a very different organization," said BP’s upstream technology advisor, Peter Duff. "So, developing the skills of our people is important to our future success. We want to ensure that we remain distinctive and can access the best learning, both inside and outside the company. We believe that training providers like NExT can help us to achieve this."

"BP is going to be continually looking at how industry education is evolving in the marketplace. We see these universities (TAMU, OU and HWU) as being leaders in their fields (petroleum engineering and geosciences), and NExT is assured of a high-quality product through its association with them. NExT is able to harness some of the top talent worldwide for instruction, and this will make a better benefit for everyone concerned. I’m new to what they do here, but I’m enormously encouraged by what I’ve heard at this (advisory board) meeting," Duff added.

Sonatrach’s vice president for exploration, Ahmed Mecheraoui, is also on the industry advisory board. In fact, he recently was elected chairman of that board. He is equally impressed with early indications from NExT. "Today, our company’s exploration results are good, already over 40%," said Mecheraoui. "But our dream is to get toward 100%. To do that, we must change people’s mindsets and get them to work together, and integrate technology. Thus, we look at tools we can use to help us achieve that process. NExT is one of those tools.

"We like the idea of NExT, because they are not just providing one standard program – the curriculum is customized to an oil company’s needs," explained Mecheraoui. "We need to know how to integrate all the newest products and technologies, and take the best of each. We want the best 20%, not the common 80%. For training personnel, our goal is the same – to receive the best education available, the best 20%. If NExT is bringing that 20% (and we think they are), then they will be better than any other tra1ning programs and providers in the marketplace."