The Preliminary Specification Part CCXXXIV (R&C Part XLIV)

We continue on with our discussion regarding the documenting of capabilities within the “Capabilities Interface” of the Research & Capabilities module. It has been a long and difficult process to detail what it is exactly that we are capturing in this interface. Capabilities are a difficult concept to quantify and qualify. Add to that difficulty is the need to keep innovation at the forefront of the producers and Joint Operating Committees capability, and the challenge ahead is well defined. We are continuing on with our review of Professor Richard Langlois’ paper “Transaction Cost Economics in Real Time” with our focus on obtaining the capabilities from the marketplace derived of the service industry offerings.

One thing that can be stated that is for certain is that the Preliminary Specification is consistent with the culture of the industry. No producer firm seeks to internalize the capabilities that are available in the free market. The capital nature of the equipment, the geographical range of operations and the skills of the people employed would require the producer to have such extensive operations that they would lose focus of the task at hand, finding and producing oil and gas reserves. Using the service industry as a market is the only choice and the manner in which People, Ideas & Objects is proposing in the Research & Capabilities module is to control the operation with what amounts to military precision.

But often - and especially when innovation is involved - the links among firms are of a more complex sort, involving everything from informal swaps of information (von Hippel, 1989) to joint ventures and other formal collaborative arrangements (Mowery, 1989). All firms must rely on the capabilities owned by others, especially to the extent those capabilities are dissimilar to those the firm possesses. p. 108

In what may become a naming issue, the “Capabilities Interface” has never been conceived as a static repository of information. On the contrary it is a dynamic interface where the information is constantly being changed as a result of changes in the market and the producer firm or Joint Operating Committee. These dynamic changes are reflections of the actions taken by these participants and are populated through a variety of inputs. It might be best to begin to call the “Capabilities Interface” the “Dynamic Capabilities Interface” as this better reflects the true purpose behind the interface.

A market form of organization is capable of learning and creating new capabilities, often in a self reinforcing and synergistic way. Marshall describes just such a system when he talks about the benefits of localized industry. The mysteries of the trade become no mysteries; but are as it were in the air and children learn many of them unconsciously. good work is rightly appreciated, inventions and improvement in machinery, in processes and the general organization of the business have their merits promptly discussed: if one man starts a new idea, it is taken up by others and combined with suggestions of their own; and thus it becomes the source of further new ideas. And presently subsidiary trades grow up in the neighbourhood, supplying it with implements and materials, organizing its traffic, and in many ways conducing to the economy of its materials. (Marshall, 2961, IV .x.3, p. 271) p. 120

It is the job of the producer firm in some instances and the Joint Operating Committee in most instances to effectively and efficiently coordinate and control the operation. The capabilities available from the marketplace must be the most up to date. In an Information Technology environment in which we find ourselves these days, that is not the issue. Having the people involved on the same page, understanding the proper command and control structure, the means to execute the operation and the appropriate objective is the issue. And that issue is handled in the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules of the Preliminary Specification. Yet at the same time, because we are relying on the market, and are structured for innovation we can still rely on the benefits of both.

In this sense, the ability of a large organization to coordinate the implementation of an innovation, which is clearly an advantage in some situations, may be a disadvantage in other ways. Coordination means getting everyone on the same wavelength. But the variation that drives an evolutionary learning system depends on people being on different wavelengths - it depends, in effect, on out-breeding. This is something much more difficult to achieve in a large organization than in a disintegrated system. Indeed, as Cohen and Levinthal (1990a, p. 132) point out, an organization experiencing rapid change ought in effect to emulate a market in its ability to expose to the environment a broad range of knowledge gathering 'receptors'. p. 120

and

"Vertical integration, I argued, might be most conducive to systemic, integrative innovation, especially those involving process improvements when demand is high and predictable. By contrast, vertical integration may be less desirable - and may be undesirable - in the case of differentiation or autonomous innovations. Such innovations require less coordination, and vertical integration in such cases may serve only to cut off alternative approaches. Moreover, disintegration might be most beneficial in situations of high uncertainty: situations in which the product is changing rapidly, the characteristics of demand are still unknown, and production is either unproblematical or production costs play a minor role in competition. In such cases the coordinating benefits of vertical integration are far outweighed by the evolutionary benefits of disintegration." pp. 120 - 121

If running a successful oil and gas company was easy everyone would be doing it. We certainly are moving into a challenging time for a challenging business. Those that want to step up are going to need to have the organization defined and supported by the software the firm and Joint Operating Committee uses. Software like People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification.

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 CCXXXIII (R&C Part XLIII)

We continue on with our review of Professor Richard Langlois’ research in this our fourth pass through the Research & Capabilities module of the Preliminary Specification. The last few posts may have been a little confusing in that the focus might have appeared to be on the Knowledge & Learning module with the strong Joint Operating Committee focus. That is one of the possibilities with these specifications being so close in terms of their functionality. Recall too that the “Capabilities Interface” which is detailed in the Research & Capabilities module is populated into the Knowledge & Learning module for deployment purposes. This confusion between the modules will appear from time to time and is otherwise unavoidable and immaterial.

It is in the “Capabilities Interface” that we are seeking to document the “what” and “how” of the operation the Joint Operating Committee will undertake. It is very important to note at this point that the tacit knowledge that makes up that operation can not be documented. It will however be invoked through the orders in the Job Order system. The depth of “knowledge, skills and experience” that is documented in the “Capabilities Interface” includes the members of the Joint Operating Committee, their roles and responsibilities, and the field operations personnel. Detailing what and how they need to do their jobs in order to attain the objective of the operation. In a paper entitled “Transaction Costs in Real Time” Professor Langlois notes:

Although one can find versions of the idea in Smith, Marshall, and elsewhere, the modern discussion of the capabilities of organization probably begins with Edith Penrose (1959), who suggested viewing the firm as a 'pool of resources'. Among the writers who have used and developed this idea are G.B. Richardson (1972), Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter (1982), and David Teece (1980, 1982). To all these authors, the firm is a pool not of tangible but of intangible resources. Capabilities, in the end, are a matter of knowledge. Because of the nature of specialization and the limits to cognition, organizations as well as individuals are limited in what they know how to do effectively. Put the other way, organizations possess a pool of more-or-less embodied 'how to' knowledge useful for particular classes of activities. pp. 105 - 106.

That’s an effective way to state what it is that we are trying to achieve here. The “Capabilities Interface” is a how-to database of capabilities the firm has for getting things done. Or;

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

Now here is the point where we need to pay attention. Both figuratively and literally. In this post as well as in any and all oil and gas field operations. The ability to do any of these tasks on auto-pilot doesn’t exist. And the implications of the next quotation is far reaching.

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

It will need to be the explicit instruction contained within the “Capabilities Interface” that guides the field operation. The conscious attention necessary to follow the program is a necessity. However, this is also about innovation. If there is an opportunity for further innovation. There is the Job Order system in which to invoke the request for a change in orders.

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

One thing I can say for certainty is that the technology begins with People, Ideas & Objects. By developing the Preliminary Specification the producers will be able to attain the level of innovativeness and operational control that is described in these posts.

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 CCXXXII (R&C Part XLII)

We move on from modularity to discuss “Dynamic Transaction Costs” in the Research & Capabilities module of the Preliminary Specification. We have discussed these costs in other modules and have dealt with them by establishing an account in the chart of accounts to specify these costs when they are incurred, where ever they are incurred. They are particularly relevant to the discussion in the Research & Capabilities module as Professor Langlois describes them as;

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

Constructing a temporary operational organization that is derivative of the Joint Operating Committee and populated with the service industry representatives based on the capabilities established in the “Capabilities Interface” of the Research & Capabilities module. May incur “Dynamic Transaction Costs”. We are looking for an increase in economic performance from the oil and gas industry. In order to achieve that higher level of performance we expect the division of labor and specialization to be strong elements of how that increased performance is achieved. Having the coordination and organization constructed in the “Capabilities Interface” is how the oil and gas producer will achieve these higher levels of performance.

It is, Marshall says, a general rule, to which there are not very many exceptions, that the development of the organism, whether social or physical, involves an increasing subdivision of function between its separate parts on the one hand, and on the other, a more intimate connection between them. Each part gets to be less and less self sufficient, to depend for its well being more and more on other parts... This increased subdivision of functions, or "differentiation," as it is called, manifests itself with regard to industry in such forms as the division of labour, and the development of specialized skill, knowledge and machinery: while "integration," that is, a growing intimacy and firmness of the connections between the separate parts of the industrial organism, shows itself in such forms as the increase of security of commercial credit, and of the means and habits of communication by sea and road, by railway and telegraph, by post and printing press. (Marshall, 1961, IV.viii.1 p.241).

So in essence we have two major processes that will incur dynamic transaction costs. One is the move from the firm to the Joint Operating Committee as the coordinator of the operations. And secondly, the enhanced division of labor and specialization bringing a further “subdivision of function between its separate parts”. Therefore it is necessary to capture the role and responsibilities of everyone involved in the operation to ensure that the tasks are completed with the objective in mind. And that includes the lease hands on the drilling rig and the water hauling driver. It will be this level of operational control that provides the Joint Operating Committee with the successful operations they seek.

Economic progress, then, is for Marshall a matter of improvements in knowledge and organization as much as a matter of scale economies in the neoclassical sense. We can see this clearly in his 'law of increasing return,' which is distinctly not a law of increasing returns to scale: 'An increase of labour and capital leads generally to improved organization, which increases the efficiency of the work of labour and capital' (Marshall, 1961, IV. xiii,2 p. 318) p. 101

It might be argued that the lack of operational organization that is exercised by the oil and gas company today. That is resulting in the conflict between the oil and gas companies and the service industry. Leading to the cost overruns. Is as a result of the lack operational organization. And if Marshall is correct, of which he has over a century of proof, then the solution will require an advanced organizational construct. And in oil and gas that must involve the Joint Operating Committee the legal, financial, operational decision making, communication, cultural, innovation and strategic framework of the industry.

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 CCXXXI (R&C Part XLI)

We have today’s post in which to discuss another point about the modularity of the temporary operational organization that is formed around the Joint Operating Committee. These organizations are formed with member firms of the Joint Operating Committee and the service industry to drill or frac a well or any other field operation. With the People, Ideas & Objects Research & Capabilities module, interfaces are provided for users to command and control the operation. Interfaces such as the “Capabilities Interface”, “Planning & Deployment Interface”, AFE and Job Order. The modularity comes about as a result of having elements of these applications operating within the producer firms, the Joint Operating Committees and the service industry operators as well as in the field.

In this the fourth pass through the Preliminary Specification the focus is on capabilities. Modularity is a key part of capabilities. Professor Richard Langlois notes in “Modularity in Technology, Organization and Society” the tie-in of modularity and capabilities.

This is the basic modularization of the market economy. It accords well with the modularization G. B. Richardson (1972) suggested in offering the concept of economic capabilities. By capabilities Richardson means "knowledge, experience, and skills" (1972, p. 888), a notion related to what Jensen and Meckling (1992) call "specific knowledge” and to what Hayek (1945) called "knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place." For the most part, Richardson argues, firms will tend to specialize in activities requiring similar capabilities, that is, "in activities for which their capabilities offer some comparative advantage" (Richardson 1972, p. 888). p. 27

The level of detailed knowledge captured within the “Capabilities Interface” of the Research & Capabilities module will need to be extensive. In order for the operation that is expected to be run off of the capability, and to have everyone on the same page will require that much thought and planning goes in to the capability, and hence an operation. The contrast is to provide incentives in contracts for suppliers to be successful, and we have seen the extent of that mechanisms capabilities. Deploying disparate teams of individuals who are aware of the objective, what their role in the success of that objective is, and what everyone else is doing there is the necessary alternative. This requires documentation of the capabilities for deployment, the appropriate chain of command, a means in which to execute the plan and a system that is familiar and functional to define and support the organization.

So why don't we observe everywhere a perfectly atomistic modularization according to comparative advantage in capabilities - with no organizations of any significance, just workers wielding tools and trading in anonymous markets? We have already seen the outlines of several answers. The older property rights literature, we saw, would insist that the reason is externalities, notably the externalities of team work arising from the nature of the technology of production itself. The mainstream economics of organization is fixated on another possibility: because of highly specific assets, parties can threaten one another with pecuniary externalities ex post in a way that has real ex ante effects on efficiency (Klein, Crawford, and Alchian 1978; Williamson 1985). Richardson offers a somewhat different, and perhaps more fertile, alternative. Firms seek to specialize in activities for which their capabilities are similar: but production requires the coordination of complementary activities. Especially in a world of change, such coordination requires the transmission of information beyond what can be sent through the interface of the price system. As a consequence, qualitative coordination is necessary, and that need brings with it not only the organizational structure called the firm but also a variety of inter-firm relationships and interconnections as well. p. 27 - 28

Recall we are moving the knowledge to where the decision rights reside, in the Joint Operating Committee. And we are removing the bureaucracy from the situation. Therefore the activities of the “firm” as described in the previous quote are being replaced by the Joint Operating Committee in terms of the “qualitative coordination” in the People, Ideas & Objects application modules.

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 CCXXX (R&C Part XL)

We have discussed modularity many times with respect to the Preliminary Specification. With eleven modules in the specification we have relied heavily on the principles of modularity to ensure that the user is provided with usable systems. In today’s post we are going to take modularity to a deeper level. In the past few days we have been discussing the unique organization that is created to complete a field operation. These organizations are derivative of the Joint Operating Committee and include members of the service industry. They are authorized, controlled and operated in the People, Ideas & Objects system through the “Capabilities Interface”, “Planning & Deployment Interface”, “AFE”, and “Job Order” systems to name a few. These make up a modular system that are part of the “modularity” benefits that we are seeking to achieve in this temporary organization and the Preliminary Specification.

Looking at the operation in the field through the lens of modularity can help us to deal with complexity and to simplify the interactions between the different situations and people. From Professor Richard Langlois paper “Modularity in Technology and Organization”.

Modularity is a very general set of principles for managing complexity. By breaking up a complex system into discrete pieces - which can then communicate with one another only through standardized interfaces within a standardized architecture - one can eliminate what would otherwise be an unmanageable spaghetti tangle of systemic interconnections. p. 1

Having difficult systems interconnections is a minor issue when compared to the real problems that people will have with systems that are too complex and too “different” each time they go to use them. As Professor Sidney Winter of the Wharton School of Business in his paper “Towards a Neo-Shumpterian Theory of the Firm” notes.

Carrying out a new plan and acting according to a customary one are things as different as making a road and walking along it. (p.85) p. 9

It is therefore imperative that we apply modularity theory to the design of the temporary organization that makes up these derivative organizations.

What is new is the application of the idea of modularity not only to technological design but also to organizational design. Sanchez and Mahoney (1996) go so far as to assert that modularity in the design of products leads to - or at least ought to lead to modularity in the design of the organizations that produce such products. p. 1

Remember we are spanning the oil and gas industry and the service industry. The marketplace and the firm. And suddenly the scope and budget of the Preliminary Specification doesn’t seem large enough. To achieve the efficiency and effectiveness of the interactions between the two industries will require this approach. Can it be done in an ad-hoc or other fashion? Are we dealing with Information Technologies that are in their infancy? Or are we dealing with the limited and self interested minds of the bureaucracy?

To incorporate elements of modularity into the systems that we build we have certain design considerations to include. In terms of the temporary organizations that we are creating here for these operations, I think the key focus will have to be on standards.

Recently, Baldwin and Clark (1997, p. 86) have drawn on similar ideas from computer science to formulate some general principles of modular systems design. The decomposition of a system into modules, they argue, should involve the partitioning of information into visible design rules and hidden design parameters. The visible design rules (or visible information consists of three parts. 

• An architecture specifies what modules will be part of the system and what their function will be.
• Interfaces describe in detail how the modules will interact, including how they fit together and communicate.
• And standards test a modules conformity to design rules and measure the modules performance relative to other modules.

These visible pieces of information need to be widely shared and communicated. But contrast, the hidden design parameters are encapsulated within the modules, and they need not (indeed, should not) be communicated beyond the boundaries of the module. p. 7

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 CCXXIX (R&C Part XXXIX)

I have a few more comments to make on the coordination of the markets through the “Capabilities Interface” of the Research & Capabilities module. It might seem that we are contradicting ourselves when we criticize the bureaucracy yet put in place such extensive coordinating mechanisms to control the oil and gas operation. This post will show the differences between the bureaucracy and operational control is a matter of decision rights and authority. One of which, the bureaucracy, is redundant. I will also show the level of control that is implemented in the People, Ideas & Objects system is through the Job Order system.

Multi-lateral and Multi-frac wells are rather large and expensive operations. For that matter drilling a conventional well is a large risk for most producers. The need for operational control is not a nice to have but a necessity. The need to have the integration of the oil and gas and service industries to the level discussed here in the Preliminary Specification is a large and expensive undertaking. One that fits within the scope of the Preliminary Specifications $100 million budget to determine the overall needs of the system. And also within the scope of the People, Ideas & Objects eleven module application in its initial commercial release, which comes with a budget of $1 to $2 billion. Lets not fool ourselves, the scope of change that we are creating here is dramatic. To achieve the integration between these two industries needs to have this type of approach to make it successful.

It is in Professor Langlois paper “Industrial Dynamics, Innovation and Development” that he strikes the right approach in terms of the issue of the Preliminary Specification and these software developments.

Industrial economists tend to think of competition as occurring between atomic units called "firms." Theorists of organization tend to think about the choice among various kinds of organization structures - what Langlois and Robertson (1995) call "business institutions. But few have thought about the choice of business institution as a competitive weapon. p. 1

In terms of operational control the “Capabilities Interface” provides a means to have everyone on the team operating from the same hymn sheet. Everyone knows what the plan is and everyone knows what everyone else is doing. Now we need a means in which to execute the plan. In the “Planning & Deployment Interface” as well as in some other interfaces users will have access to the “Job Order System” of the People, Ideas & Objects application. This will provide the ability for a member of the operational team, with the operational authority as designated in the Military Command & Control Metaphor, to issue a Job Order to execute a certain operation. Simply nothing is done during the field operation without the Job Order being issued.

This next quotation might be confusing without some discussion. It is from a Berkeley study and is dated in 1989, a time when the Japanese and the Americans were fighting over dominance in the micro-chip manufacturing industries. Apparently the two industries were configured quite differently, as Berkeley notes below. And it is the Americans that grew to dominate the industry at the Japanese almost total capitulation. The organizational structure of these industries is interesting to see some twenty three years later.

In one of the few contemporary academic examinations of this industry, a study by the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy concluded that; ... with regard to both the generation of learning in production and the appropriation of economic returns from such learning, the U.S. semiconductor equipment and device industries are structurally disadvantaged relative to the Japanese. The Japanese have evolved an industrial model that combines higher levels of concentration of both chip and equipment suppliers with quasi-integration between them. whereas the American industry is characterized by levels of concentration that, by comparison, are too low and [by] excessive vertical disintegration (that is, an absence of mechanisms to coordinate their learning and investment processes) (Stowsky, 1989) p. 3

My point in highlighting this is that we are relying heavily on the decentralized marketplace in the service industry to provide the oil and gas industry with the products and services it needs. We are however, also providing the Joint Operating Committee with high levels of coordination of the operation during the times it is employing the service industry. This is not a contradiction, one is a market, the other is an operation. The oil and gas industry depends on a highly innovative service industry and this will be expected from the marketplace. It also demands precision from the field operations that it conducts. Innovation will arise from both.

Thus in radio it was not the case that an integrated path of learning within a large firm gave rise to innovation; it was rather that innovation, channeled within a particular structure of property rights, contained the path of learning within a single large firm. p. 16

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 CCXXVIII (R&C Part XXXVIII)

What could only be described as a breakthrough, yesterday’s post documented the Preliminary Specifications coordination of capabilities through the “Capabilities Interface” of the Research & Capabilities module. This relieving the incentives problem that contracting of the service industry is presenting to the oil and gas industry. As we learned yesterday, coordination will provide oil and gas producers with the control over field operations. Coordination through the “Capabilities Interface” provides the alternative means in which to ensure the science of the oil and gas business is effectively controlled as opposed to motivating the service industry through incentive clauses in the contracts. We will continue today with this concept of the “incentive problem” and test it further with Professor Richard Langlois paper “Capabilities and Governance: the Rebirth of Production in the Theory of Economic Organization.”

More generally, we are worried that conceptualizing all problems of economic organization as problems of aligning incentives not only misrepresents important phenomena but also hinders understanding other phenomena, such as the role of production costs in determining the boundaries of the firm. As we will argue, in fact, it may well pay off intellectually to pursue a research strategy that is essentially the flip-side of the coin, namely to assume that all incentive problems can be eliminated by assumption and concentrate on coordination (including communication) and production cost issues only.

It is through the producers documentation of the capabilities in the “Capabilities Interface” of the Research & Capabilities module that the “knowledge, experience and skills” are captured. From the engineers and geologists that are part of the Joint Operating Committee to those that are in the field, each should have an understanding of what is required of them from the capability that is listed in the “Capabilities Interface”. Recall that in the Knowledge & Learning module these capabilities are called like plays in the football analogy. Everyone on the team knowing what is happening and what their role and task is. That is what needs to be documented in the “Capabilities Interface” for each of these roles, for each of the capabilities that are captured there.

In a world of tacit and distributed knowledge - that is, of differential capabilities - having the same blueprints [or software] as one's competitors is unlikely to translate into having the same costs of production. Generally, in such a world, firms will not confront the same production costs for the same type of productive activity. p. 18

And that becomes obvious when we consider that the capabilities that are available to each Joint Operating Committee, and the Military Command & Control Metaphor that is used, is going to be unique to each situation it is applied to. Using the same team to apply the same capability over and over again however should yield the same results. Therefore, if you were running a ten well drilling program then the consistency of the capabilities and the MCCM would provide the same precision and the same results.

This in turn, implies that the capabilities may be interpreted as a distinct theory of economic organization. p. 18

and

... 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

This is inherently and simply true. The key to the successful implementation of any program is the level of documentation of the capability and the level of control during the operation. The “Capabilities Interface” combined with the Military Command & Control Metaphor provide the producer firm and Joint Operating Committee with the means for successful operations. Remember that “knowledge begets capability and capability begets action”. And contrast this to the current situation where the producers throw more money at the service industry to incentivize them to succeed.

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 CCXXVII (R&C Part XXXVII)

In yesterday’s post we noted how the information detailed in the “Capabilities Interface” of the Research & Capabilities module would provide the “knowledge, experience, and skills” of the operation. That these details were provided to all of the members of the temporary organization that was put together for the purpose of that specific operation. From the lease hands on the drilling rig to the engineers and geologists of the participating producers of the Joint Operating Committee. Everyone would be on the same page in terms of what and how the capabilities of the firms and market were being deployed. In today’s post we want to discuss these points further and relate how the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification enables the innovative producer to successfully complete these field operations.

[I]t seems to me that we cannot hope to construct an adequate theory of industrial organization and in particular to answer our question about the division of labour between firm and market, unless the elements of organization, knowledge, experience and skills are brought back to the foreground of our vision (Richardson 1972, p. 888).

Before we get too much further into this discussion let us also bring in the Military Command & Control Metaphor that was developed by People, Ideas & Objects. The MCCM provides a means for the “pooled” technical resources within a Joint Operating Committee to immediately adopt a command and control structure that is recognizable. It is expected that this command and control structure would also extend over the field personnel from the field contractors that were hired for the operation being conducted. This would therefore provide a level of control to the engineers and geologists that would attain the precision necessary. Such that once the engineer gave the order to drill to a TD of a certain depth, then that would be achieved at exactly the  point where the engineer expected it.

Here in the next quotation Professor Langlois raises an interesting point about “incentive alignment”. We’ll be talking about this more in tomorrow’s post as well. But in essence he is saying that at a certain point its not about a matter of incentives that motivates a team to succeed.

As we will argue in more detail below, there are in fact two principal theoretical avenues closed off by a conception of organization as the solution to a problem of incentive alignment. And both have to do with the question of production knowledge. One is the possibility that knowledge about how to produce is imperfect - or, as we would prefer to say, dispersed, bounded, sticky and idiosyncratic. The second is the possibility that knowledge about how to link together one person's (or organization's) productive knowledge with that of another is also imperfect. The first possibility leads us to the issue of capabilities or competencies; the second leads to the issue of qualitative coordination. p. 11

Reading of this next quotation shows that we have a job to do here in the “Capabilities Interface” of the Research & Capabilities module. That is we need to replace this critical function that was done by the “firm” in the previous organization. As much as I want to criticize the current management they are doing the job to a certain level. And to not respect that level would be a failure on our part. What we need to do is to capture what the firm does now by “lowering the costs of qualitative coordination in a world of uncertainty.”

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

Going back to the incentives issue for a moment. Lets put in context the conflict between the service industry and the oil and gas producers. They have been in disagreement for a number of years as to the pricing of the services for field operations. Read this next quotation with this in mind.

All recognize that knowledge is imperfect and that most economically interesting contracts are, as a consequence, incomplete. But most of the literature considers seriously as coordinating devices only contracts and the incentives they embody. It thus neglects the role- the potentially far more important role - of routines and capabilities as coordinating devices. Moreover, the assumption that production costs are distinct from transaction costs and that production costs can and should always be held constant obscures the way productive knowledge is generated and transmitted in the economy. p. 14

Professor Langlois is 100% correct. The producers are relying on contracts to incentivize the contractors and its not working. What is required is better coordination. And that begins with systems like the People, Ideas & Objects Research & Capabilities module that details the capabilities of the producers and field staff in a manner that constructively deals with the problems of a scientific based business.

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 CCXXVI (R&C Part XXXVI)

It was during the Preliminary Research Report that we determined two important elements that we should point out here in the Research & Capabilities module of the Preliminary Specification. The first was the oil and gas industry was moving away from an “easy” energy era where producers were able to provide for bankable returns on investments. And moving to a much more difficult scientific basis of the business based on the earth science and engineering capabilities as the key determining competitive advantages. The other element that was determined in the Preliminary Research Report was that organizations are defined and supported by the software that they used. And we coined the phrase that SAP is the bureaucracy to reflect this fact. Therefore in order to change the organization it is necessary to first change the software that defines the organization.

It is in the Research & Capabilities module that we are defining and supporting the science basis of the oil and gas business. How the earth science and engineering capabilities of the firm are acquired and deployed are the roles of this and the Knowledge & Learning modules. It is with that in mind that we begin our review of Professor Richard Langlois paper “Capabilities and Governance: the Rebirth of Production in the Theory of Economic Organization”.

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

It is by way of a scenario that a producer was able to document the internal and external components of the capabilities needed to conduct multi-lateral and multi-frac shale gas operations. Through a series of tests and trials they have been able to secure these processes to the point where the capabilities are deployed successfully with minimal interruption. These processes documentation in the “Capabilities Interface” is subsequently populated to all of the shale gas zones of all the Joint Operating Committees they participate in and are available to be deployed at any time. The Joint Operating Committees know they can rely on a fully tested process based on their publication in the “Capabilities Interface”. By selecting the code in the “Capabilities Interface” everyone from the engineers and geologists from the Joint Operating Committee participants to the lease hands on the drilling rig can see their role and responsibilities in making the operation a success. It is through the Knowledge & Learning’s “Planning & Deployment Interface” that the individual codes of each of the capabilities are accumulated and the program is designed to be executed.

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 p. 7.

What we had not discussed, until now, in the previous entries of the Research & Capabilities or Knowledge & Learning module is an important element of the “Planning & Deployment Interface”, the AFE. It will naturally be the AFE that is a large part of how the business and operational end of the deployment is initiated. Therefore the AFE template is a simple part of the “Planning & Deployment Interface”.

In sum, whether we see it from the perspective of the capabilities perspective or from the perspective of the modern economics of organization, there is an exciting theoretical frontier ahead. p. 31

The obvious comment that I want to make at this point is for clarity. And that is that the marketplace is the source of the capabilities, with operational coordination coming from the producer firm and Joint Operating Committee. If the business is a science, having everyone read from the same, unique in each instance, hymn book will not only be necessary, but will be the only way in which to be successful.

Seldom if ever have economists of organization considered that knowledge may be imperfect in the realm of production, and that institutional forms may play the role not (only) of constraining unproductive rent seeking behaviour but (also) of creating the possibilities for productive rent-seeking behaviour in the first place. To put it another way, economists have neglected the benefit side of alternative organizational structures; for reason of history and technique, they have allocated most of their resources to the cost side. p. 6

You have a unique, one time, temporary organization which is derivative of the Joint Operating Committee. Isn’t it worthwhile to make sure that that organization is able to understand everything that it is working to accomplish.

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 CCXXV (R&C Part XXXV)

Starting off with our fourth, or capabilities, pass through the Research & Capabilities module of the Preliminary Specification. For background I went through the thirty four posts to date and have to say that I am very pleased with the content so far. We have much more to document, however the substance of the module is becoming quite strong. What I expect that we will be able to do is to detail what a capability is within the “Capability Interface” and many other things by reviewing Professor Langlois research material. But for today I thought I would highlight some of the areas that stood out for me when I was reviewing the module.

There are a couple of “big” things that the module does. The first is to divide the labor between the research and development processes and the execution of those processes. These are separated in the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules. The other “big” thing that is done is to move the knowledge to the area where the decision rights are held, the Joint Operating Committee. Professor Richard Langlois notes in the following.

The question then becomes: why are capabilities sometimes organized within firms, sometimes decentralized in markets, and sometimes coordinated by a myriad contractual and ownership arrangements like joint ventures, franchisees, and networks? Explicitly echoing Hayek, Jensen and Meckling (1992, p.251) who point out that economic organization must solve two different kinds of problems: "the rights assignment problem (determining who should exercise a decision right) and the control or agency problem (how to ensure that self-interested decision agents exercise their rights in a way that contributes to the organizational objective)." There are basically two ways to ensure such a "collocation" of knowledge and decision making: "One is by moving the knowledge to those with the decision rights; the other is by moving the decision rights to those with the knowledge." (Jensen and Meckling 1992 p. 253). p. 9

Another point that jumped out at me was the quote from Professor Carliss Baldwin of Harvard University. That “knowledge begets capability and capability begets action” seems to capture the objective of what it is we are after in the module. We need to remember to keep this focus in mind when we are working in the “Capabilities Interface”. That the data elements that we bring in to the interface are designed to initiate action.

During our review of Professor Giovanni Dosi we learned of technical trade-offs. And how these trade-offs facilitate the ability for industries to innovate on the changing technical and scientific paradigms. Crucial to the facilitation of these trade-offs is a fundamental component that spurs the change and is usually abundant and available at low costs. For innovation to occur in oil and gas, People, Ideas & Objects asserts that the ability to seek and find knowledge, and to collaborate are two “commodities” that are abundant today. With their inherent low direct costs, knowledge and collaboration are the triggers for a number of technical paradigms which will provide companies with fundamental innovations. There are many knowledge and collaborative interfaces in the Preliminary Specification, making the People, Ideas & Objects ERP system the ideal candidate for the innovative oil and gas producer.

Lastly we should note that when markets such as oil and gas are asymmetric, research & development are the ways in which to differentiate capabilities and build an innovative oil and gas producer. Tomorrow we will begin our review of Professor Richard Langlois work in the Research & Capabilities module of the Preliminary Specification.

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.