The Preliminary Specification Part CCXXIV (AV Part XV)

We have been discussing the Accounting Vouchers “Transaction Design Interface” and its purpose as a tool to coordinate the use of the market. We want to ensure that the efforts in coordinating the market are consistent with the objectives of the firm or the Joint Operating Committee and don’t conflict with the objectives of those who are initiating the work in the Research & Capabilities or Knowledge & Learning or other modules. As we will see in this post the work in the coordination through the Accounting Voucher of the Preliminary Specification is focused on the business end of the transactions, not on the operational side.

The first question that most people will have is why are we concerned with the coordination of the markets in the Accounting Voucher. Here Professor Richard Langlois made the following comment in response to a question on his “Vanishing Hand” paper.

Here again, I think the problem is one of conceptual imprecision. It is perfectly common, and often unobjectionable, to contrast a market and an organization, that is, to contrast the institution called a market and the institution called an organization (such as, notably, a firm). But the opposite of “organization” in the abstract sense is not “market” but disorganization. More helpfully, the opposite of conscious organization is unplanned or spontaneous coordination. In this sense the market-organization spectrum (and similar spectra one could imagine) are arguably orthogonal to the planned-spontaneous spectrum. One could well wonder, as I have (Langlois 1995), whether large organizations do not in fact grow far more as the unplanned consequence of many individual decisions than as the result of the conscious planning of any individual or small group of individuals. And it is certainly the case that, as Alfred Marshall understood, both firms and markets “are structures for promoting the growth of knowledge, and both require conscious organization” (Loasby 1990, p. 120).

In this day and age, with such large distances, geographic, size, language and other, between vendors and producers leaving the coordination of the markets to “spontaneous order” is asking too much of human ingenuity. Particularly with the focus of the industry to a further division of labor and specialization, where the risk and reward of oil and gas operations are so great, market coordination or transaction design will be a critical and necessary task to be carried out. Each operation may be the result of more people being involved. Once again it is not from an operations point of view that we are attempting to influence the operation, it is from the business point of view. How will the transactions and business be captured in such a manner that the firm and Joint Operating Committee are incurring the lowest possible costs of the most efficient methods of these business transactions.

As Harvey Leibenstein long ago pointed out, economic growth is always a process of “gap-filling,” that is, of supplying the missing links in the evolving chain of complementary inputs to production. Especially in a developed and well functioning economy, one with what I like to call market-supporting institutions (Langlois 2003), such gap-filling can often proceed in important part through the “spontaneous” action of more-or-less anonymous markets. In other times and places, notably in less-developed economies or in sectors of developed economies undergoing systemic change, gap-filling requires other forms of organization — more internalized and centrally coordinated forms. p. 6

and

Let’s take a closer look at the nature of the “gaps” involved. Adam Smith tells us in the first sentence of The Wealth of Nations that what accounts for “the greatest improvement in the productive power of labour” is the continual subdivision of that labor (Smith 1976, I.i.1). Growth in the extent of the market makes it economical to specialize labor to tasks and tools, which increases productivity – and productivity is the real wealth of nations. As the benefits of the resulting increases in per capita output find their way into the pockets of consumers, the extent of the market expands further, leading to additional division of labor – and so on in a self-reinforcing process of organizational change and learning (Richardson 1975; Young 1928). p. 7

If we recall in the Resource Marketplace module the vendors and suppliers are maintaining their own contact data. Within that data is there key personnel that include their field staff. They should also be including their key business people for the purposes of the “Transaction Design Interface” to collaborate on these interfaces. In addition their billing information and banking data, as well as other critical data and information that will help the producer firm or Joint Operating Committee efficiently coordinate and process the transactions they are involved in should be included. Lastly a collaborative interface should be provided for everyone within the Accounting Vouchers vendor pool to discuss how the transaction is designed.

Tomorrow we will begin our fourth pass through the Research & Capabilities module.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle (private circle, accessible by members only) and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CCXXIII (AV Part XIV)

We continue today with our discussion of designing transactions in the Accounting Voucher module of the Preliminary Specification. The role of the Accounting Voucher in defining the source of the market or the firm as the originator of the transaction is minimal. However, it has a role in ensuring the costs of these transactions are minimal and are a source of the firms profitable operations. We can all envision a power mad accountant with an entourage of underlings going off to solve the next great accounting issue. These costly nightmares occur every once in a while, maybe People, Ideas & Object is the latest manifestation of this sickness. Having the ability to design transactions should be a value added process, not an exercise with no purpose. If there was a simple way to describe this purpose it would be as a tool to coordinate the firm or Joint Operating Committees use of the market.

This conceptually falls between transaction costs economics, capabilities and transaction design. All three are areas that Professor Richard Langlois has included within his area of research. We have also used Professor Carliss Baldwin for her work in transaction design. Professor Richard Langlois in his paper "The secret life of mundane transaction costs."

However, a new approach to economic organization, here called "the capabilities approach," that places production centre stage in the explanation of economic organization, is now emerging. We discuss the sources of this approach and its relation to the mainstream economics of organization. p. 1

and

"One of our important goals here is to bring the capabilities view more centrally in the ken of economics. We offer it not as a finely honed theory but as a developing area of research whose potential remains relatively untapped. Moreover, we present the capabilities view not as an alternative to the transaction-cost approach but as complementary area of research" pp. 7.

It is the Accounting Voucher module of the Preliminary Specification that takes the accountant away from the benign score keeper role to the role of active participant in the operation. One that looks at the market from the point of view of how best to coordinate the various elements to provide the greatest value add to the firm or Joint Operating Committee they are employed by. In Richard Langlois “Capabilities and Governance: the Rebirth of Production in the Theory of Economic Organization"

A close reading of this passage suggests that Coase's explanation for the emergence of the firm is ultimately a coordination one: the firm is an institution that lowers the costs of qualitative coordination in a world of uncertainty. p. 11

And this is maybe one of the important considerations of the work that we do here in People, Ideas & Objects. Is the realization that each producer firm and each Joint Operating Committee are going to be unique. That due to their makeup they are going to be different in material ways. Innovation will have a dramatic scale in how it is measured against each firm or JOC. The approach will be anything but cookie cutter.

Either way it boils down to the same common-sense recognition, namely that individuals - and organizations - are necessarily limited in what they know how to do well. Indeed, the main interest of capabilities view is to understand what is distinctive about firms as unitary, historical organizations of co-operating individuals. p. 17

Therefore, according to the research of Professor Langlois the transaction costs will be an immaterial item in comparison between firms or Joint Operating Committees. That is to say that they will be the same in all instances. And People, Ideas & Objects have asserted that they will be immaterial due to the application of Information Technologies. However the differentiating costs between firms and JOC’s will be these costs of coordinating the market. Making the Accounting Voucher module a critical tool in the ability to offer the producer firm the most profitable means of oil and gas operations.

... while transaction cost consideration undoubtedly explain why firms come into existence, once most production is carried out within firms and most transactions are firm-firm transactions and not factor-factor transactions, the level of transaction costs will be greatly reduced and the dominant factor determining the institutional structure of production will in general no longer be transaction costs but the relative costs of different firms in organizing particular activities. p 19

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle (private circle, accessible by members only) and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CCXXII (AV Part XIII)

One area of the Accounting Voucher that we have not been very clear in getting our point across is the concept of designing transactions. With this fourth pass through the Preliminary Specification we should be able to spend some time on defining what it is that we are speaking of. What accountants will be spending their time on in the future is the designing of transactions and leaving the processing of transactions to the computers. If you have been reading the Preliminary Specification you will have an understanding of the methods of organization of the marketplace and the producer firm. And how the Joint Operating Committee interacts with these. It will be with that understanding that we can begin to understand the concept of designing transactions. So let us begin with a simple description of the transactions makeup. From Harvard Professors Carliss Baldwin and Kim Clark.

...objects that are transacted must be standardized and counted to the mutual satisfaction of the parties involved. Also in a transaction, there must be valuation on both sides and a backward, compensatory transfer - consideration paid by the buyer to the seller. Each of these activities - standardizing, counting, valuing, compensating - adds a new set of task and transfers to the overall task and transfer network. Thus it is costly to convert even the simplest transfer into a transaction.

Lets use a scenario where a group of small producers have four producing wells of natural gas with some liquids production. They are situated next to a large gas plant that processes their gas in exchange for the liquids and markets their gas on the spot market. In this scenario we are evaluating these properties from the perspective of including them in the Preliminary Specification. And we begin by analyzing the production accounting elements in the Accounting Voucher with the Production Accounting Service Provider in the area.

The Production Accounting Service Provider assesses their fees on the basis of a unit of work incurred during the production month. For example this might include reading a gas chart, meter reading, material balance report etc. At each point they assess a standard fee for service. This then goes to their billing process and at the end of the month is billed to their clients based on the work output. This imputes that someone has designed their billing and work flow from a transaction design point of view. Professors Baldwin and Clark.

The user and Producer need to deploy knowledgeable in their own domains, but each needs only a little knowledge about the other's. If labor is divided between two domains and most task-relevant information hidden with each one, then only a few, relatively simple transfers of material, energy and information need to pass between the domains. p. 17

and

Placing a transaction - a shared definition, a means of counting, and a means of payment - at the completed transfer point allows the decentralized magic of the price system to go to work. p.22

Again if there is no production there is no basis for the Production Accounting Service Providers billing. Fulfilling the decentralized production model objective. This scenario shows how the Production Accounting Service Provider had designed their transactions to produce their billings. Their accountants were not concerned about the processing of transactions, but the processes of billings in a fully automated manner. This is the role of the Accounting Voucher for the producer firm and Joint Operating Committee. Automation of the business processes of the innovative oil and gas industry through transaction design.

The most significant fact about this system, is the economy of knowledge with which it operates, or how little the individual participants need to know in order to be able to take the right action. In abbreviated form, by a kind of symbol, only the most essential information is passed on... Frederick Hayek (1945)

The Accounting Voucher has the “Transaction Design Interface” that provides a worksheet for accountants to design transactions. There is a defined process of analysis of how to break down these transactions and we will get into that as we proceed through the Preliminary Specification. It is important to recall at this point that each Accounting Voucher can be used as a template for subsequent months. So once a transaction is designed, it can be reused through the implementation of it as an Accounting Voucher template.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle (private circle, accessible by members only) and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CCXXI (AV Part XII)

When we talk about the capabilities of the innovative oil and gas producer. The Accounting Voucher module of the Preliminary Specification doesn’t necessarily come immediately to mind. Yet it is an important element in the capabilities that we have been detailing here in the Preliminary Specification. Particularly when we are moving to the “decentralized production” model from the “high throughput production” model that the industry is currently configured as.

In a world of decentralized production, most costs are variable costs; so, when variations or interruptions in product flow interfere with output, costs decline more or less in line with revenues. But when high-throughput production is accomplished by means of high-fixed-cost machinery and organization, variations and interruptions leave significant overheads uncovered. p. 58

In other modules we have detailed how the overhead costs of production, revenue and royalty and other accounting related costs associated with the property would not be incurred during periods when the facility was shut-in. The accountants these costs are representative of, are part of service providers and not directly employed by any of the specific producers. As such their service offerings were based on billings that were transaction driven, and therefore without production, no transactions were created to drive their billings. Hence no overhead, like accounting costs, would be incurred at the facility where the production was shut-in. The Accounting Voucher can be a further check and balance on the “decentralized production” model by ensuring that no overhead charges for the months are incurred if no production occurred.

Recall too that we have the Material Balance Report that balances the Joint Operating Committees volumetric inputs and outputs. Encapsulating these volumes within the Accounting Voucher itself as a means of enforcing the integrity of the systems balance. Where the “Material” balance, the “System” balance and the “Partner” balance for each of the participants in the Joint Operating Committee are as integral to the Accounting Voucher as debits and credits.

And the Purchase Order system that provides a means in which to control the costs for large projects. Ensuring that the contracts that govern these projects are adhered to in terms of payments, with-holding's and discounts. I think the Purchase Order capabilities provided, through an effective user interface, in the Accounting Voucher will provide significant value for the Joint Operating Committee.

We have also introduced the concept of costing the earth science and engineering resources of a producer firm to the joint account. These are in replacement to the overhead allowances that are provided for today. To charge these resources through the Accounting Voucher as a cost recovery and return on investment of the producer firms capabilities. With the elimination of the operator designation and the pooling of technical resources this charging of these resources to the joint account will be a necessary element of the pooling concept.

Lastly we have also discussed the concept of designing transactions in the Accounting Voucher. There are two different concepts here, and both are captured in the Accounting Vouchers implementation. The first is the same as the determination of who, for example, the drilling contractor, a third party or the producer will provide the product or service in the drilling contract. And the second concept is the determination of the thin crossing point of where the transaction should occur between the two firms. Although we want to select the “thinnest” point, with today’s Information Technologies we can also populate the transaction with a variety of data that makes for a much more valuable interaction between firms.

That brings to a close a quick high level review of the points to date in the Accounting Voucher module of the Preliminary Specification. We will commence our fourth, or capabilities, pass tomorrow.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle (private circle, accessible by members only) and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

2012 Funding Update

The results of our 2012 first quarter funding campaign can now be reported. As was expected, none of the oil and gas firms chose to participate in the funding or support of People, Ideas & Objects. From our perspective, as with 2010 and 2011, we see this as evidence that management are too conflicted to participate in this project. The only way forward through this deadlock will be from the explicit direction of the ownership class of the oil and gas firms. It is therefore anticipated that this project will proceed on a somewhat brick-by-brick and stick-by-stick basis. Stay tuned.

It is now time for producers to act. Review of our Revenue Model will inform producers how they can participate in the development of People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. Producers can contact me here for further information, or to begin the process of their participation.

The Preliminary Specification Part CCXX (PA Part XXX)

Yesterday’s post began a discussion of the culture of the industry and how the inertia of the industries routines and capabilities made for formidable obstacles to change. Thankfully we are not focusing on changing any of the cultural inertia in the oil and gas industry. We are trying to change the bureaucracies and the systems to recognize the routines, capabilities and inertia of the Joint Operating Committee. This does however require the retirement or fading of the bureaucracy in its current form.

And institutional change, we argue, can often take place through the more or less slow dying out of obsolete institutions in a population and their replacement by better-adapted institutions - rather than by the conscious adaptation of existing institutions in the face of change. p. 6

Thankfully the bureaucracy does not sustain its own inertia. It is a forced or contrived existence that serves the purposes of a few within the organization, and these needs can be replaced by the Joint Operating Committee. I’m thinking of the command and control, budget and finance functions. What we have said we are doing with the Preliminary Specification is moving to the natural form of organization of the oil and gas industry, the Joint Operating Committee. I don’t foresee difficulties in making the transition from the bureaucracies forced ways to the more natural way of doing things with the Joint Operating Committee.

Another aspect of capabilities that has recently received a great deal of attention is organizational culture. In practice, not all organizations may be equally able to cope with change, as existing patterns of behavior involving both executives and subordinates may be resistant to change. Organizations develop collective habits or ways of thinking that can be altered only gradually. To the extent that a given culture is either flexible or consistent with a proposed change in product or process technology, the transition to the new regime will be relatively easy. If, however, the culture is incompatible with the needs posed by the change and is inflexible, the viability of the change will be threatened (Robertson, 1990; Langlois 1991; Camerer and Vepsalainen, 1988). p. 9

And the proposition that this transition will occur has been threatened by the bureaucracy. They hold the budget and have exercised it in not providing any funding towards People, Ideas & Objects. In this fashion the bureaucracy has been self-serving and looking after its own interests and has abandoned the future of the industry. What will the situation be like in five or ten years. Will their ways still be the methods in which the industry functions? What if they fail?

Teece... fails to note that the inflexibility, or inertia, induced by routines and the capabilities that they generate can raise to prohibitive levels the cost of adopting a new technology or entering new fields. Such inertia can develop to the extent that existing rules are both hard to discard and inconsistent with types of change that might otherwise be profitable. p. 10

McKinsey Consulting suggest that large populations will be joining the middle class in the next 20 years. This will have a dramatic effect on the levels of demand for energy. If the oil and gas industry fails to respond to these demands due to the bureaucracies lethargic ways, will anyone note that there were these alternatives proposed.

Whereas major competence enhancing innovations may, in time, be assimilated, the creation of entirely new organizations may be needed to deal with innovations that undermine the capabilities or competences of existing firms. p. 11

Tomorrow we will begin our fourth pass through the Accounting Voucher.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle (private circle, accessible by members only) and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CCXIX (PA Part XXIX)

We want to continue to discuss the differences and similarities of the AFE process in the Partnership Accounting module of the Preliminary Specification. In particular we want to focus on the culture of the Joint Operating Committee and how the AFE process represents a large portion of the culture of the oil and gas industry. Lastly we’ll tie this discussion into the paper written by Professors Richard Langlois and Paul Robertson entitled “Institutions, Inertia and Changing Industrial Leadership”.

We have discussed many times that the People, Ideas & Objects application modules are moving the compliance and governance frameworks of the hierarchy into alignment with the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, innovation and strategic frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee. By doing so we are recognizing and adopting the culture of the industry in its many forms. The change that we are exercising is the removal of the bureaucracy. When it comes to the AFE process there is little in the current process used by companies that is not representative of the culture of the industry. It is optimal that People, Ideas & Objects and the user communities capture that culture in these software developments when developing the AFE process.

One area that we will provide an enhancement to the AFE process is through the elimination of the “operator” designation. People, Ideas & Objects operates on the concept of a pooling of the resources of the partnership represented in the Joint Operating Committee. This is done to help mitigate the technical resource shortfalls, particularly in the earth science and engineering areas. As a result of this pooling an AFE will be open to any one of the participants in a Joint Operating Committee to post charges to. Those charges could be for their staff who are working on the project or for costs they incurred on behalf of the project.

With each producer potentially contributing unequal shares to the joint account or AFE during a month, or over the course of an AFE’s term. The possibility that an over or under contribution of their participation might occur. Therefore monthly equalization's will need to be a necessary part of the reconciliation of the accounts of the AFE. For example, if one of the partners was to pay for the drilling day rate, and their working interest share was only fifteen percent, then they would have paid in excess of fifteen percent of the budgeted AFE. In a case such as this, the producer should be compensated to the point where their contribution does not exceed the approved budgeted amount.

All of this is consistent with the culture of the industry as it operates today. What we are proposing is aligning this culture within the Joint Operating Committee with the other eight frameworks. We are not resisting this well ingrained highly functioning “inertia” as Professor Langlois would call it.

Inertia is the focus of this paper. As is explained in more detail below, inertia has two major functions in the cycle of punctuated equilibrium. Inertia result from, and in a sense embodies, the best feature of the stable phase of the cycle because it is based on the learning process in which producers determine which procedures are most efficient and effective. Once people are satisfied that the know how to do things well, they have very little incentive to look for or adopt new methods. In the words of Tushman and Romanelli (1985, pp. 197, 205), "those same social and structural factors which are associated with effective performance are also the foundations of organizational inertia..., success sows the seeds of extraordinary resistance to fundamental change." Inertia also provides the tension, however, that leads to the (relatively) short, sharp shock of the revolutionary period (Gould, 1983, p. 153) because the pressure required to displace a successful but inert system is considerable and takes time to accumulate. When there is little inertia, change can be assimilated in a gradual and orderly fashion, but an entrenched system may need to be vigorously displaced. p. 3

Based on this quotation, bureaucracies have little inertia and can be changed, therefore we will continue.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle (private circle, accessible by members only) and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CCXVIII (PA Part XXVIII)

In this post I want to clarify some of the similarities and differences between the AFE and Work Order in the Partnership Accounting module of the Preliminary Specification. And to point out an important difference in the People, Ideas & Objects systems documents that is different then those that operate today.

I had mentioned previously that at no time should any of the staff at a producer firm or Joint Operating Committee be working and not having their time charged to a Work Order. The People, Ideas & Objects system will have the ability to charge your time to a valid Work Order and it is incumbent on the employee or contractor to ensure that they have their time charged to a valid Work Order number. These statements were made earlier on in the Preliminary Specification and now I can state that this also applies to the AFE. So the statement should read that it is incumbent on the employee or contractor to ensure that they have their time charged to a valid Work Order or AFE.

Some may wonder what is the difference between a Work Order and an AFE. AFE’s within the Partnership Accounting module are fundamentally no different then the industry understanding of an AFE. And that is, its a means to deploy the Joint Operating Committees capital within the Joint Operating Committees domain. A Work Order is different in that it is not affiliated with any formal partnership model. It is an informal group of producers that have come together to participate in a small project that is a one time event. Which will require the need to aggregate and distribute costs and revenues based on a working interest distribution. It has a formal approval process, but not as rigid as the AFE’s in that it requires budgetary approval only. They can be internal or external and are used to control the deployment of the budget of the firm / Joint Operating Committee.

Another aspect of how both the Work Order and AFE are different in the People, Ideas & Objects system in comparison to other systems that exist today is the manner in which documents are stored. Everyone is familiar with multiple copies of files that have been edited by different people. A disappointing and troubling problem when it comes to electronic files, a disaster when it comes to documents. No one can have different electronic versions of a document. Therefore there can only be one copy of the document that is used by everyone. (Exclusions for backup etc.) Since its electronic, multiple people can be using the same document at the same time.

The best example of a system that uses this exact manner of file management is Google Doc’s. Where users have access to a list of files in which they or others they grant access to can edit the same file. Any conflicts in the editing of those files are resolved by the users while editing and the file stays as one complete edited file at all times. There is no need for someone to take edits from many files and put them into one file as is the case with Microsoft Word or Excel.

Instead of files People, Ideas & Objects will present the user with documents like AFE’s and Accounting Vouchers that they have authorized access to. They and others will have the ability to view, edit and delete based on their authorization level and be assured that only those documents exist. No other more advanced copies, or copies that are less advanced, are being worked on. The amount of time and energy that will be saved in knowing that just one document exists is not only satisfying but highly productive.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle (private circle, accessible by members only) and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CCXVII (PA Part XXVII)

One area that we have not discussed in any detail are the processes around the Authority for Expenditure or AFE. In this the fourth pass through the Preliminary Specification I am going to break the AFE discussion down into two parts, one here in the Partnership Accounting module and the other in the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules. What we will discuss today are the partnership accounting aspects of the document, and later we will discuss the capabilities deployment elements in the other modules.

As with any interface in the Preliminary Specification the user has the opportunity to right click on an item and pull up a menu item called “Create an AFE”. The system will have intelligence and be able to populate elements of an AFE template with the information that you right clicked from. For the purposes of this scenario, lets suggest that you clicked on a well description. The system will then populate the AFE with the information for that well and the partners that are in that Joint Operating Committee. The suggestion was made that another lateral and fracing job be done to increase the production from the shale gas zone. And you populate the AFE with the appropriate account codes that would be used to account for the costs. Note: due to the extensive work done in the Preliminary Specification it should be anticipated that the industry would have access to a global chart of accounts. Budgeted costs were worked out with a number of vendors that you were working with who have developed some enhancements to the re-entry and fracing of multi-lateral wells. You think these are significant innovations and the costs make it a potentially valuable enhancement to the wells production profile.

To present the AFE to the partners you have asked them to join you in the “Marketplace Interface” at the vendors facility to view a presentation of their new tool. All having confirmed their attendance. At the end of the presentation you digitally sign the AFE which releases the document to the other partners. (All with the data elements that are consistent with their data naming conventions. Global AFE #’s, account #’s, etc.) You indicate the cost estimates and time frame that this can be done to the one well, the poorest performer in the facility. You also submit the engineering and geological analysis of why you think the formation will perform well to the work that is proposed.

Within the AFE document itself there is a collaborative interface for the partners to discuss issues and opportunities related to the document. During the month this discussion focused on how the existing lateral could be protected from any damage during the drilling and fracing of the second lateral. Several partners expressed concern that the program did not do enough to ensure that no damage occurred so a supplemental was raised. After the supplemental there seemed to be a consensus amongst the members of the Joint Operating Committee that the risk was certainly worth the effort and the AFE was digitally signed by all the participants.

During the collaboration it was determined who was available from the producer firms to work on the project and a team was set up to manage the engineering and geological aspects of the program. These peoples time, as well as the accounts for the vendors for that AFE were now able to accept the charges for them. Cost overruns were not expected as an arrangement with the vendor for a fixed price was agreed.

This is a simple scenario of how the firm will raise an AFE and have the members of a Joint Operating Committee approve / disapprove of it. In larger firms there would be an automated routing of the document to the various internal departments for approval. This could be done simultaneously as multiple people can be reading one electronic document at the same time. Therefore accounting, production and exploration could each be approving the AFE all on the same day with none of the paper shuffling that normally goes on. Even within each department the various people who need to see and sign off on the information can do so at any time.

This routing of the document will of course be conducted at each of the producers who are party to the Joint Operating Committees. Each also having access to the collaborative interface of the AFE document between the partners.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle (private circle, accessible by members only) and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CCXVI (PA Part XXVI)

We’ve uprooted the accountants from their homes within the comfortable hierarchy. And expected them to develop their own businesses with their own self sustaining revenue streams. Now we’re going to get them to ask themselves how best to address the industries accounting needs. Imagine that, accountants considering how best to address the industries accounting needs. It’s not that we’re being mean to the accountants, its just in their nature. In the movement of the administrative functions from the firm to the market there will be the generation of what Professor Richard Langlois in his paper in the Journal of Industrial and Corporate Change describes as “Dynamic Transaction Costs”.

Over time, capabilities change as firms and markets learn, which implies a kind of information or knowledge cost - the cost of transferring the firm's capabilities to the market or vice-verse. These "dynamic" governance costs are the costs of persuading, negotiating and coordinating with, and teaching others. They arise in the face of change, notably technological and organizational innovation. In effect, they are the costs of not having the capabilities you need when you need them. p. 99

Recall in other modules, we established an account to collect the charges for Dynamic Transaction Costs so that they can be identified and controlled. These costs will be incurred in the beginning stages of the transition from the firm to the market configuration.

"F.A. Hayek (1945, p. 523) once wrote that 'economic problems arise always and only in consequence of change.' My argument is the flip-side: as change diminishes, economic problems recede. Specifically, as learning takes place within a stable environment, transaction costs diminish. As Carl Dahlman (1979) points out, all transaction costs are at base information costs. And, with time and learning, contracting parties gain information about one another's behavior. More importantly, the transacting parties will with time develop or hit upon institutional arrangements that mitigate the sources of transaction costs." p. 104

What I would imagine will happen will be the accounting staff of an oil and gas firm will be cast adrift to find its own footing. Based on a Service Level Agreement they will be free to organize and approach other producers for similar services and attempt to discern where their specialization exists. Sounds pretty dramatic but should this not have happened a long time ago?

It will be during this time when the Dynamic Transaction Costs are high. It will need to be determined within the Service Level Agreement how these costs are recovered. And as time passes and the work that is undertaken by the various accounting service providers that provide services to the producer fall into a routine, then we will know the transition to the market is complete. Professor Langlois notes.

‘Routines,' write Nelson and Winter (1982, p. 124), 'are the skills of an organization.' p. 106

and

Such tacit knowledge is fundamentally empirical: it is gained through imitation and repetition not through conscious analysis or explicit instruction. This certainly does not mean that humans are incapable of innovation; but it does mean that there are limits to what conscious attention can accomplish. It is only because much of life is a matter of tacit knowledge and unconscious rules that conscious attention can produce as much as it does. p. 106

and

In a metaphoric sense, at least, the capabilities or the organization are more than the sum (whatever that means) of the 'skill' of the firms physical capital, there is also the matter of organization. How the firm is organized - how the routines of the humans and machines are linked together - is also part of a firm's capabilities. Indeed, 'skills, organization, and technology are intimately intertwined in a functioning routine, and it is difficult to say exactly where one aspect ends and another begins' (Nelson and Winter, 1982, p. 104). p. 106

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle (private circle, accessible by members only) and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.