The Preliminary Specification Part CLXXVI (RM Part XXX)

The question comes down to where does the current management of the oil and gas producer fit in to the Resource Marketplace of the Preliminary Specification? We have detailed how the innovative oil and gas producer and the supplier / vendor operate within the Resource Marketplace and other modules, but we have been silent on the managements role in these processes. That’s because there is no role for the non “C” class management, and that is the primary reason that People, Ideas & Objects remains in its initial phases. No money has ever been directed to People, Ideas & Object to support these developments. Any other proposal with this much value to the industry would have been funded by now. Many software companies have been funded by oil and gas managements that have no ideas but close familial or friendly relationships. This blog post is about the role management have had in ensuring that People, Ideas & Objects doesn’t get funded. Management has a vested interest in the status quo, not in a future like that of the Preliminary Specification, a future that does not involve them.

Professor Alfred P. Chandler has noted that management failed during the great depression. A time he says when the government had to intervene and increase its involvement in the economy to make up the difference. There is no reason that given a situation, management might not fail again. They also have no stake in a firm. If a crisis were to strike a firm, the management would resume elsewhere. It is the investor and debt holders who will shoulder the costs.

Chandler's review of corporate history shows the role of the merchants. Investing their capital and skills, merchants were the ones that started the ball rolling. Management currently hold the reigns, and are mindful that their options may lay elsewhere. Ownership, in the same fashion as the Merchants need to start over. Starting over begins with the oil and gas investors supporting People, Ideas & Objects and the Community of Independent Service Providers to provide an alternative means to manage their oil and gas assets. The Preliminary Specification is the beginning of that alternate means to manage their assets.

Schumpeter states that "Innovation drives economic development". For our global economy to grow, greater supply of energy is required. To meet this demand the energy producers, or energy investors, must innovate. And this role is contrasted to management as optimizers. Professor William Lazonick "The optimizing firm is not an innovating firm, indeed it can be characterized as an un-innovating firm." The costs of innovation are an investment. However, the source of the funds to support innovation are from revenues not profits, equity or debt. Or as we have stated at People, Ideas & Objects, the commodity prices are reallocating the financial resources to innovate.

As Information Technologies continue to creep into the role of management. Will they be able to continue to cut the budget to everything that offends their franchise? What will their world look like in ten years time? What will your investment look like in five years time? As time passes and no action is taken, further damages may occur that may not be resolved by an immediate install of People, Ideas & Objects software. We are still looking at several years of development time to finish these application modules. The clock is ticking.

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. 

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXXV (RM Part XXIX)

In today’s post I want to stay in the domain of the supplier / vendor and discuss how their greater participation and role in the Joint Operating Committees capabilities, increases the profitability of the oil and gas producers. How this organizational conceptual model will aid not only aid the producers but also the suppliers / vendors in the innovative oil and gas industry. From Professor Ronald Coase in the “Nature of the Firm” 1937

Adam Smith explained that the productivity of the economic system depends on specialization (he says the division of labor), but specialization is only possible if there is exchange-and the lower the costs of exchange (transaction costs if you will), the more specialization there will be and the greater the productivity of the system. p. 73

The competitive advantages of the oil and gas producers are their land and asset base, and their earth science and engineering capabilities. To a large extent everything else is secondary to the firm in terms of maintaining a competitive position within the industry. What is not core to their competitive advantage can be obtained through contract from the marketplace on the basis of the “decentralized production model”. Leaving the “high throughput production” model that is currently being used behind. From Professor Coase.

This is what I said in a lecture published in Lives of the Laureates (Coase, 1995 p. 245): The costs of coordination within a firm and the level of transaction costs that it faces are affected by its ability to purchase inputs from other firms, and their ability to supply these inputs depends in part on their costs of coordination and the level of transaction costs that they face which are similarly affected by what these are in still other firms. What we are dealing with is a complex interrelated structure." Add to this the influence of the laws, of the social system, and of the culture, as well as the effects of technological changes such as the digital revolution with its dramatic fall in information costs (a major component of transaction costs), and you have a complicated set of interrelationships the nature of which will take much dedicated work over a long period to discover. But when this is done, all of economics will have become what we now call "the new institutional economics. p. 73

If the oil and gas producer is to attain a higher output of oil and gas it will require them to focus on their part of the process in a more specialized manner. And that would apply to the overall industry as much as to any individual producer. Leaving the work that they may be involved in today to the marketplace to provide. This might have the prototypical producer firm configured with the officers, engineers, geologists, geophysicists and a handful of lawyers for contracts and land deals. Everyone else provided through a service contract in the Resource Marketplace module. This producer firm will manage their interests in a variety of Joint Operating Committees and participate in the development of their properties. Each JOC having acquired capabilities from the supplier / vendors in the Resource Marketplace.

It is this reliance on the Resource Marketplace module at both the producer level and the Joint Operating Committee that I am emphasizing in this post. Specialization at all levels of the industry will enable the oil and gas and service industries to produce more oil and gas with the same resource base. This is the benefit of the division of labor. We however, first need to implement a new organizational model that incorporates all the elements of the industry. And that includes the service providers in the field and in the head offices of the producers. Without that we are only solving part of the problem. The point of this exercise is that with the increased output of oil and gas, and the more efficient production of that oil and gas as a result of the market configuration noted above. The oil and gas producer will be more profitable as a result of the software that identifies and supports this decentralized production model.

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXXIV (RM Part XXVIII)

Listed as a project on Professor Richard Langlois website is “The Vanishing Hand” which he describes in his paper “The Vanishing Hand: the Changing Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism” as.

The basic argument - the vanishing hand hypothesis - is as follows. Driven by increases in population and income and by the reduction of technological and legal barriers to trade, the Smithian process of the division of labor always tends to lead to finer specialization of function and increased coordination through markets, much as Allyn Young (1928) claimed long ago. But the components of that process - technology, organization, and institutions - change at different rates. p. 3

Suggesting that we are moving towards a market based form of industrial capitalism. One that leaves behind the “visible hand” of the hierarchy and its management. Yesterday we noted that there were interfaces for the service industry to the Resource Marketplace module of the Preliminary Specification. Specifically a project management interface that enabled the provider to determine and pass their Dynamic Transaction Costs on to the Joint Operating Committee. It is necessary that the producers provide the service providers with access to the software in this fashion, and to offset these costs to enable the markets to expand.

As in Chandler, secular changes in relative prices attendant on "globalization" (driven by technology or politics) affect economic organization not only directly but also, and perhaps more importantly, indirectly through changes in technology. Production costs matter as much as transaction costs (Langlois and Foss 1999) Moreover, the kind of transaction costs that matter in history are often not those of the Williamson kind but those I have labeled dynamic transaction costs (Langlois 1992b). Costs of coordinating through markets may be high simply because existing markets - or more correctly, existing market-supporting institutions - are inadequate to the needs of new technology and of new profit opportunities. But when markets are given time and a larger extent, they tend to "catch up," and it starts to pay to delegate more and more activities rather than to direct them administratively within a corporate structure. p. 5

The oil and gas industry has to consider itself a market-supporting institution to the service industry. These service providers are not primary industries, they are dependent on their revenues from the oil and gas producers. It would serve the oil and gas industry well to remember that they are dependent on the service industry as well. There has been so much talk about how greedy and lazy the service industry is from the producers themselves that I can’t imagine how more toxic it could get. The attitudes and actions of an innovative and successful oil and gas producer are so far removed from this behavior, we have far to travel.

How would learning proceed in a system of decentralized capabilities? As I have already suggested, progress would take place autonomously within the decentralized stages. There would be no need for integration unless a systemic innovation offering superior performance arrives on the scene. Indeed, as we have seen, fixed task boundaries and standardized connections between stages might make innovation difficult with the existing structure, requiring a kind of creative destruction. (Schumpeter, 1950). p. 121

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXXIII (RM Part XXIV)

We continue on our discussion of capabilities in the Resource Marketplace module of the Preliminary Specification. Today we want to look at the situation from the point of view of the supplier / vendor in terms of how they are providing capabilities to the Joint Operating Committee that employs them. Yesterday we discussed how much of the data regarding their service operation is populated into the Joint Operating Committees “Planning & Deployment Interface”.

From the supplier / vendor’s point of view being part of the detailed planning of the program will not be anything to new. What we are seeking to achieve is for the oil and gas producers as represented in the Joint Operating Committees having a greater reliance on “thicker” markets in the service industry. A greater dependence on an innovative and competitive service industry marketplace is a necessary building block as a base for the innovative oil and gas industry. This is reflected in the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specifications “Ideas Marketplace Blog”, and the decentralized manner in which the industry operates. Some may suggest the industry operates in that fashion, I have argued here that we are far from that conceptual model. That is evidenced by level of conflict between the producers and suppliers and the lack of competition in the supplier marketplace. I see the producer firms as the primary reason for this situation. They have consistently obstructed the service industry market from operating effectively at critical times. This is reflected in purchasing equipment for their own purpose, like drilling rigs, not working with anything but proven technology, not sponsoring any research, not working with anyone other than of size, etc.

It is important to recall that the user of the “Planning & Deployment Interface” will be using the tool to map out a path to success from their internal capabilities and those that are acquired through the supplier we are discussing here, and any other suppliers they may have selected. For the supplier to overstate their capabilities for marketing or other purposes would be a tactical mistake that could cost their company dearly. Furthermore, if they represent that they have x resources available, and find at the time of the project, that they need to make changes or are short of the specific resources they committed, they will find the same types of problems with the next job they are selected for. Recall there is the open collaborations that are in the “Supplier Collaborative Interface” for the Joint Operating Committee to air their concerns. Therefore, as will be the case in an innovative oil and gas industry, the service industry provider will need advanced Project Management tools to enable them to manage their resources in the Resource Marketplace module of the Preliminary Specification.

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 an innovative oil and gas industry with the demands on the service industry being as substantial as they are. And with the amount of work that is bid and committed too, the contingencies the supplier / vendor are subject too are as variable and costly to the service provider. A means to mitigate those costs, or alternatively to pass those costs on to the Joint Operating Committee if they are being incurred should be something that the supplier / vendor should be aware of. These cost controls will be part of the “Supplier / Vendor Project Management Interface” of the Resource Marketplace module. The producers may have other choices in terms of suppliers to turn to if these supplier / vendor Dynamic Transaction Costs are deemed to be too high. I don’t foresee many supplier / vendors continuing to lose money on contracts that also have the potential to ruin their reputations. The ability for suppliers to recover their Dynamic Transaction Costs will be a cost of doing business for the producers in the innovative oil and gas business. Just as the Joint Operating Committee will be able to rely on their suppliers capabilities to map out their path to success in the “Planning & Deployment Interface”.

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXXII (RM Part XXVI)

In terms of content, or point of discussion, we are bouncing around a bit. Our overall topic is capabilities, and we are moving from yesterday’s discussion of modularity to today’s topic of dynamic transaction costs. There is a point to all of this bouncing around and we’ll get to it some day. Dynamic Transaction Costs are somewhat of a unique area of research for Professor Richard Langlois. That is to say I think he is the leading researcher on the topic. It is a topic that affects us significantly as we operate in an environment where change is the one constant that we can rely on. Langlois’ definition of Dynamic Transaction Costs from “Transaction Cost Economics In Real Time” is as follows.

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

Clearly the oil and gas industry will have significant Dynamic Transaction Costs without People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. That is to say that they will not have the capabilities they need when they need them if they continue to use SAP in the structured hierarchy. Nonetheless, even with the use of People, Ideas & Objects there would be Dynamic Transaction Costs incurred as a result of the movement to full reliance on the market for its resources. Recall we are looking for “thicker” markets to develop as the Joint Operating Committees look to the market for all of its Resource Marketplace. Lets recall what capabilities are with a quote from Langlois’ paper, and the phrase from Harvard Professor Carliss Baldwin of “Knowledge begets capabilities beget action”.

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.

In a previous post we noted that when a supplier / vendor was selected within the “Planning & Deployment Interface” of either the Research & Capabilities or Knowledge & Learning module. Then the associated key and operational staff c/w their positions in the Military Command & Control Metaphor would be populated into the interface from the Vendor / Supplier Contact Database. With this information that we have learned today about the Dynamic Transaction Costs. We could also populate the “Planning & Deployment Interface” with the capabilities information from the supplier / vendor when it is selected. This information would also become available when it was required from the Vendor / Supplier Contact Database and be maintained by the vendor, as all the information in that database is.

"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

There will be a significant amount of information that is made available to the users of the “Planning & Deployment Interface”. Certainly the information to determine what is required to mitigate the Dynamic Transaction Costs, define any deficiencies and to map out a successful project. We’ll be discussing more on this topic in the days to come.

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXXI (RM Part XXV)

We have completed our review of how the Resource Marketplace module of the Preliminary Specification manages the boundaries of the firm and markets. Among the many areas of research of Professor Richard Langlois is modularity. Modularity builds on the boundaries between the firm and markets and is the reason that the Preliminary Specification has eleven modules. The primary advantage gained by using modularity is the ability to manage change. By isolating the impact of the change to one module, the impact of the changes are therefore manageable.

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

People, Ideas & Objects impact is beyond just the software that is proposed to be developed. Organizations such as the producer firm, the Joint Operating Committee and the service industries participants are all impacted as a result of the modules in the Preliminary Specification.

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

and

Why are some (modular) social units governed by the architecture of the organization and some governed by the larger architecture of the market? p. 2

It is in the Revenue Model that People, Ideas & Objects assert that these software developments are not just for the oil and gas producers. They are for individuals, society, and the service industry as well. To focus only on the producers misses some of the “who” we are developing these systems for.

The set of design rules that guide social interaction are what we can generally call social institutions (Langlois 1986). These rules determine (among other things) the extent to which, and the way in which a society is a modular system. The desirability of modular design is a theme with a long history in the theory of social institutions. Adam Smith long ago proposed a decentralization scheme based on what he called "the obvious and simple system of natural liberty," by which he meant a system of private property regulated by common law and subject to minimal central administrative intervention. On the economic level, this approach would lead, he believed, to economic growth spurred by innovation, learning, and an ever increasing division of labor. pp. 14 - 15

and

if we can agree that the economic problem of society is mainly one of rapid adaptation to changes in the particular circumstances of time and place," he wrote, "it would seem to follow that the ultimate decisions must be left to the people who are familiar with these circumstances, who know directly of the relevant changes and of the resources immediately available to meet them. We cannot expect that this problem will be solved by first communicating all this knowledge to a central board which, after integrating all knowledge, issues its order. We must solve it by some form of decentralization" (Hayek 1945, p. 524). p. 15

When a user is working in the Resource Marketplace module. Whether they are in an oil and gas producer, a Joint Operating Committee or a supplier / vendor. The scope of what they are dealing with are limited to the Resource Marketplace. Modularity provides interfaces to the other modules when necessary, however, dealing with just the data, processing and functionality of the Resource Marketplace enables the module to deal with many of the problems within that marketplace. The key variable that it is able to deal with is change.

Under some circumstances, the benefits of modularization may not be worth the cost. For example, a system whose environment never changes may not have to worry much about modularization. p. 8

and

In a world of change, modularity is generally worth the costs. The real issue is normally not whether to be modular but how to be modular. p. 11

These software development issues and opportunities fall within the scope of a producers General & Administrative costs. They are not core to their competitive advantages of their land and asset base, or earth science and engineering capabilities. Yet they are critical to provide the producer with what People, Ideas & Objects asserts in our Revenue Model as our core competitive advantage, as the most profitable means of oil and gas production. It is the business of the oil and gas business that needs to be focused on in order to move forward and provide for tomorrows earnings. Muddling through this time may not work.

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXX (RM Part XXIV)

To suggest that the Preliminary Specifications interfaces and the methods of innovation that are used in the Preliminary Specifications Resource Marketplace, Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules. Will operate in an environment that is similar to what the oil and gas industry operates in today misses the point of how the industry will have to reorganize itself to undertake the work loads of the future. It will be under an advanced division of labor and specialization that more work will be able to be done with the same resources. This applies most specifically to the earth science and engineering resources of the industry, however, it also applies to all areas of the oil and gas and service industries. How the task is completed today may be fundamentally different from how the task is completed in the near future. That is almost a given.

To coordinate this group of disparate individuals and organizations falls to the Joint Operating Committees. A reliance on the market is the only conceptual model that can be contemplated for the future innovative oil and gas industry. To approach this task without the software identifying and supporting the innovative processes will most certainly lead to failure. Professor Richard Langlois in his paper Capabilities and Governance noted the following two points.

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

and

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

The costs of coordination, and how that coordination is done are about to change. It will be those producers that participate in the People, Ideas & Objects user communities that will gain the greatest advantages. They will have their unique needs met, and will be able to reorganize themselves to accommodate the software, and optimize their role in coordinating their capabilities. In a working paper entitled “Organizing the Electronic Century” Professor Langlois states.

Moreover, by taking advantage of a range of capabilities far wider than the boundaries of what even the largest firm can encompass, a network of specialist suppliers and competitors is better able to exploit the value of a complex and potentially modular product architecture.

Tomorrow we will begin a review of how the Preliminary Specification handles handles modularity.

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXIX (RM Part XXIII)

The competitive advantages of the innovative oil and gas producer. Are their land and asset base, and their earth science and engineering capabilities. What the Resource Marketplace module of the Preliminary Specification provides is the means for the producer and Joint Operating Committees to coordinate those capabilities from the marketplace. In today’s post we will introduce the interface within the Resource Marketplace module that will assist in making the supplier a key contributor to the firms or JOC’s capabilities.

At this point we have the suppliers and vendors maintaining the key contact information for their firms in the “Vendor / Supplier Contact Database”. This is done to increase the accuracy of the information and reduce the time required for each of the producers to maintain the vendor contact data necessary. What will be required is for the producer to select the vendor as being a supplier that the firm will use; either as a producer, or in one of its Joint Operating Committees. This tagging will be determined through a process that the People, Ideas & Objects user community will determine. Upon selection in the “Vendor / Supplier Contact Database” it will bring in a variety of other vendor supplied data that will assist the user in the “Planning & Deployment Interface” of the Research & Capabilities or Knowledge & Learning module. Data such as their key field staff, members of their operational staff and their roles that can be assigned within the Military Command & Control Metaphor etc. This will also provide access to their calendars and other information if the resources were selected in the “Planning & Deployment Interface”.

What this denotes, and so much of the Preliminary Specification requires, is that the People, Ideas & Objects system is not a stand alone software application for one firm. It is a holistic industry-wide solution that spans the oil and gas industry and the service industries that support it. In order to achieve this type of integration requires the level of cooperation that is reflected in the People, Ideas & Objects user community and Revenue Model.

The question also becomes how does the energy industry acquire its capabilities? For some time it has employed a hybrid market / integrated firm strategy, that has left it openly critical of its suppliers and vendors. Clearly its not working. Professor Langlois notes.

The organizational question is whether new capabilities are best acquired through the market, through internal learning, or through some hybrid organizational form. And the answer will depend on (A) the already existing structure of capabilities and (B) the nature of the economic change involved. p. 21

The consequences of economic change are clear, as to where they will fall I guess is at question.

If a profit opportunity requires a configuration of capabilities different from what already exists in the economy, the Schumpeterian process of creative destruction may be set in motion. p.21

It is stated clearly in the Revenue Model of People, Ideas & Objects that our core competitive advantage is that we provide the innovative oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas production. So it would seem that Schumpeter is right!

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXVIII (RM Part XXII)

One of the areas of research of Professor Richard Langlois is the boundary of firms and markets. The Preliminary Specification relies on the Resource Marketplace module to provide the capabilities to the producer and Joint Operating Committee from the greater marketplace as represented by the oil and gas service industry. How this boundary is formed, and what its definition is, is important in determining the economic organization of the oil and gas industry.

[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).

We have briefly discussed the determining role that transaction costs have in how a firm operates. If transaction costs are high, then the firm will seek to mitigate the transactions by hiring employees to conduct the tasks and reduce the number of transactions to a few pay checks. If transaction costs are low, as we are now seeing with the aid of Information Technology, the ability to source the work from the market, from the lowest cost producer is the ideal choice. Professor Langlois notes.

Production costs determine technical (substitution) choices, but transaction costs determine which stages of the productive process are assigned to the institution of the price system and which to the institution of the firm. The kinds of costs are logically distinct; they are orthogonal to one another. As a result, issues of economic organization - such as the boundaries of the firm - cannot turn on considerations of production costs. Present-day theory has not only bought into this view but has arguably reinforced the separation. p. 10

In a nutshell, the boundaries of the firm can not be defined by production costs. The methods the industry will use to organize its production is through the ability of transaction costs to determine the origin of the production cost from either the market or the firm. With the makeup of the oil and gas industry. Conducting detailed, logistically complex, field operations in remote geographical regions. To conduct these operations internally has never been a choice, so for the Preliminary Specification to choose the boundary of the firm and market in this manner is not contrary to the culture of the industry. What we are attempting to do is to apply Professor Langlois’ theories to the culture of the oil and gas industry and determine the appropriate way forward. I think however, that the conceptual model of transaction cost economics considers that there will be “thicker” markets and a greater volume of transactions contemplated between the producer firms and Joint Operating Committees, and the marketplace. Thicker markets then what is represented in the current industry configuration. The Preliminary Specifications Resource Marketplace module considers these “thicker” markets would develop as a result of the changes in producers actions from using People, Ideas & Objects software.

Theoretically sound, but... That brings up the question of how are the capabilities that are needed to undertake the significant and complex work coordinated?

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

and

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

If we consider the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules “Capabilities Interface” as the starting document of how the firm is capable of achieving a task. The actual implementation is in either the Research & Capabilities or Knowledge & Learning modules “Planning & Deployment Interface” which brings in the capabilities from the “Capabilities Interface”, the Military Command & Control Metaphor for the resources seconded to the project, and what is not clear in the either of those modules, yet, the resources from the Resource Marketplace module that will be the elements that complete the work in the field. It is in the “Planning & Deployment Interface” that Coase’s qualitative coordination concern is resolved by the people directly employed by the producer firm or Joint Operating Committee.

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. 

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXVII (RM Part XXI)

It was during the Preliminary Research Report that I coined the phrase that “SAP is the bureaucracy.” Nothing turns your organization into cement like a good old fashioned SAP install. What the innovative oil and gas producer needs is an organization that will remain open and flexible to innovation, and a software development capability like that proposed here by People, Ideas & Objects. As we continue our review of capabilities, today’s discussion will focus on the need to have the organizational flexibility in terms of a capability to accommodate the innovations within the oil and gas producer and Joint Operating Committee organizations. A capability, much like yesterday’s blog posts capability to shut in production until prices recover, brought to the producer through the Resource Marketplace module of the Preliminary Specification.

Having the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the innovative oil and gas producer is the first point in this exercise. Having the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, innovation, and strategic frameworks aligned with the compliance and governance frameworks is necessary. To have the Preliminary Specification built as software with a fully supportive user community, and Community of Independent Service Providers will ensure that the innovative producers needs for change are not left unmet. To have all of this available without a dedicated long term software development capability to accommodate the needed changes in the organizational structures of the innovative oil and gas producers would be wasteful in my opinion. And these software development capabilities are indeed necessary according to Professor Richard Langlois’ research in capabilities.

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. 2

and

The legacy of this "path-dependent” history, we will argue, has been a tendency (albeit an imperfect tendency) to respect an implicit dichotomy between the production aspects and the exchange aspects of the firm or, to put it another way, between production costs and transaction costs. p. 5

In the Preliminary Research Report we noted Dr. Wanda Orlikowski's Model of Structuration, which is based on Dr. Anthony Giddens Theory of Structuration, and by extension software defines the organizational construct. Therefore, within Orlikowski’s Model of Structuration, I have asserted the existing software applications define, support and constrain the organization. Professor Langlois has prepared similar findings in his research with the following point.

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 behavior but (also) of creating the possibilities for productive rent-seeking behavior 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

If we want an innovative oil and gas industry then the first thing we should do is ensure that we have the capability to maintain the organizational flexibility. The flexibility necessary to ensure that we do not constrain ourselves unnecessarily, and define and support the behavior that we desire. This is the role of software in the 21st century. People, Ideas & Objects are bringing this capability to the oil and gas industry, and its time for the industry to act.

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.  

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXVI (RM Part XX)

We now turn to the capabilities view of the Preliminary Specification. Capabilities are such a critical part of innovation and we have the Research & Capabilities module that focuses on the firms capabilities. But what are they and where do they reside. We have shown how the Preliminary Specification would provide the capability to suspend production in the “Marginal Production Threshold Interface”, until the marginal costs of production are realized by the commodity price. By using the “decentralized production model,” the production and overhead costs, like the costs of Production Accountants, would not be incurred without any monthly production. Maintaining the firms profitability and saving the reserves for a time when prices are more favorable.

We have listed the capabilities of the firm in the Research & Capabilities module and they are accessed through the Knowledge & Learning module by the various Joint Operating Committees. We have used the football analogy to describe how they are formulated and deployed through a variety of interfaces but we have not discussed in any detail what the content of the pages of the “Capabilities Interface” are. Lets first of all be clear, it is the Joint Operating Committees that employ the engineers and geologists from their various firms that are running the show and that is why the modules are configured that way. The information that is contained within the “Capabilities Interface” is for them to project manage the service industry members in the Resource Marketplace module.

Lets take a brief walk down the differences between what exists today and what needs to change in the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. One area of Professor Richard Langlois’ research is in what is called Transaction Cost Economics (TCE). The market model requires that “transactions” occur between separate economic units. These transactions create “friction” in terms of the resources necessary to process the transaction itself. Therefore in the past, to avoid the costly friction of transaction costs, firms hired people as employees to conduct a variety of tasks and only told them what was required in exchange for a paycheck. This mitigated the cost of paying someone $5.00 to type a letter each time you needed that task completed etc. Langlois et al states that with the automation of transactions through the current Information Technologies, transaction costs can be reduced to an immaterial level. This is happening at a time when coincidentally the scope of operations of the hierarchy have spanned to an impossible level. The hierarchy must now make a choice, either fully integrate and take control of all of the means of production, or decentralize and let the market provide for the means of production. The Preliminary Specification assumes the latter and the Resource Marketplace module will provide the capabilities for the producer firm and Joint Operating Committee to achieve those capabilities from the market. From Professor Langlois’ 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." pp. 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.

We have captured some of the elements in the already mentioned interfaces of the modules of the Preliminary Specification. Additional interfaces would include the “Transaction Design Interface” of the Accounting Voucher module. And in the Resource Marketplace module we have discussed in past blog posts the three interfaces; the “Actionable Information Interface”, “Supplier Collaborative Interface” and the “Gap Filing Interface”. Each of these would be used in some fashion in discussion of moving to a “decentralized production model”. There are however, many more elements of this research that we will discover and develop as we 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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. 

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXV (RM Part XIX

In discussing the role of the Production Accountant and the scope of the changes that are contemplated as a result of the Preliminary Specification. I am reminded of the George Bernard Shaw quotation.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

We continue today to discuss the revised division of labor and specialization that would be done through the Resource Marketplace module of the Preliminary Specification. Moving the Production Accounting role to the Joint Operating Committee, having a service provider focus on a specific geographical region to report on for all the producers represented there, and reorganizing the work to increase the throughput of the accounting function should be the objective of the analysis and process management of the Resource Marketplace module. This analysis will also depend heavily on the “Transaction Design Interface” of the Accounting Voucher module.

First of all what are we trying to do here. The idea that I have in mind is that which is referred to as an “Encapsulated Network”. Within this network which might represent a large gas plant that aggregates gas from thousands of wells from many miles and from many different producers with many different kinds of gas. Will be one Production Accounting service provider residing in the region providing services to all of the producers and gas plant and gathering system owners. They will be the ones who will be preparing the Material Balance Reports for all of the Joint Operating Committees in the Accounting Voucher of the People, Ideas & Objects system. Each molecule of gas, as it moves through the system of production on to its sale contract will be reported through the various Material Balance Reports and the associated other production related reports. And as it incurs a point where it can be, as we discussed yesterday, standardized, counted, valued, compensated in terms of a production accounting transfer, then the system will account for that transfer on behalf of the Production Accounting service provider. At the end of the month the billing of the systems Production Accounting will total up the various transfers for the Encapsulated Network and bill the individual Joint Operating Committees for their share of the Production Accounting costs for the month. Professor Langlois notes two important things with respect to these Encapsulated Network and transactions.

Encapsulated Network in a larger system of production is to facilitate complex transfers without making all of them transactions. p 28

and

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)

Now that each process within the Production Accounting role has been defined in terms of its revenue generating capabilities then the service provider can organize the service on the basis of where and how they earn the most profits. Either by providing those services at the lowest costs or by providing those services which are the most technically difficult will bring the highest profits. The point being that the service provider is free to reorganize the service in any way that they can in order to provide a better service at lower cost. That imputes a greater division of labor and further standardization. A process that they will become more expert in as time passes and as such will be the source of their future profitability.

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXIV (RM XVIII)

In today’s post we want to carry on with the discussion of how the industry would transition to a “decentralized production model” from its current “high throughput production” model through the Resource Marketplace module of the Preliminary Specification. We will be using the example of the Production Accountant and the changes that would need to be made in order to make the transition from one model to the other. Using the type of analysis that will be needed to be made during the development of the People, Ideas & Objects software. And is one of the reasons for the high costs of this software development.

The Production Accountant will be primarily working with the Material Balance Report and associated reports contained within the Accounting Voucher module. Recall that the Material Balance Report is a Joint Operating Committee report that is prepared on behalf of all the participants in the various JOC’s that are captured in the report. That would denote that the Production Accountant would also work for the JOC. It is therefore asked why would they work for a specific producer? Since the Material Balance Report seeks to balance a facility or area that the JOC has their facility or interest in, then the Production Accountant can bill their services to the JOC. Taking this to the next logical step why doesn’t the Production Accountant work on all of the facilities in the region for all of the JOC’s. That way there would be an efficiency and understanding of the overall region in terms of what is happening. The Production Accountant could be responsible for handling the Material Balance Report and associated reports for the entire region. Then if the region were to grow into a large gas facility, then the Production Accountants could organize themselves into a service provider that could service their clients on the basis of a renewed standardization and division of labor. This process would also provide the producers with the desired transition to the “decentralized production model” in that no production accounting service fees would be incurred if no production came from the facility that month.

The method to analyse and organize the transition to the Production Accountant as a service provider is based on the following.

...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.

Although as we mentioned at the beginning, and noted in the quotation, this analysis is costly, however because it is being done once on behalf of the subscribing producers to People, Ideas & Objects. And assuming that we gain significant volumes of subscribing producers, the costs to each producer of this analysis is immaterial.

By standardizing, counting, valuing and compensating the tasks and transfers of the Production Accounting role and embedding the results within the Resource Marketplace and Accounting Voucher modules of the Preliminary Specification we can provide the value to the Joint Operating Committees in this fashion. If you believe that producers should have their own army of Production Accountants then we probably disagree on how the job should be done. It is in the Petroleum Lease Marketplace module that the selection of either the partnerships agreed to production allocation, or how do you say “factual” basis of production allocation should be made. We understand that there are these two methodologies. Usually the smaller plants follow the chemical facts. The larger plants usually follow the agreements. People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification Accounting Voucher modules Material Balance Report can report in either fashion. Leaving the job of the Production Accountant to be politically inert as to how to allocate the production. Tomorrow we will discuss further the division of labor of the Production Accounting role.

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. 

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXIII (RM Part XVII)

We start our fourth pass through the Preliminary Specification in the Resource Marketplace module with a look at Chapter 4 “The Rise of the Corporation” of Professor Richard Langlois book “The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism”. In this chapter he suggests that organizations developed “buffers” in order to mitigate the variances in markets. These buffers would include inventories and in oil and gas that would include commercial storage. These “buffers” help to offset the difficulties in the business and make the potential variances dissipate in terms of their magnitude and frequency. Langlois however, notes that buffers come with the cost of a lack of operational flexibility, and as it turns out a whole lot more. Commercial storage of natural gas is at record levels in North America and gas prices are at $2.52 / mmbtu. A price that would make most of the gas productions costs exceed the price received.

Professor Langlois states that there are two business models that we can chose from. The “high throughput production” model or the “decentralized production model”. Currently the industry is operating under the “high throughput production” model and through the choice of developing and using the People, Ideas & Objects software we can transform the industry model to the “decentralized production model”. This will be a theme that will be discussed throughout the fourth pass through the Preliminary Specification. Here is how the two models operate.

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

When difficult times arise, such as we are experiencing in the natural gas business today, the reaction is to cut back on capital expenditures. This is a blunt and ineffective tool to deal with the problem of overproduction and the real culprit, record storage. What has to happen is the marginal production has to be removed from the market until such time as the price realized covers its costs and a reasonable profit is earned. The decentralized production model will allow the producers to throttle back the production volumes and correspondingly cut back on production and overhead costs, until such time as the prices recover to cover the marginal cost of the production and an element of profit. Other wise we are going to see these violent over reactions in the prices of the commodities.

To achieve this removal of the marginal production the producers are going to need the restructuring around the “decentralized production model”. This will require the development of software to define and support these attributes in the organization first and foremost. You can’t restructure a fundamental change of this scope in the industry without first making the software that defines and supports that change. That is what we are doing here in People, Ideas & Objects.

The operational decision making framework of the industry is held with the Joint Operating Committee. Within the Petroleum Lease Marketplace module we will have the “Marginal Production Threshold Interface” where the partnership can agree to the volumetric decrease, or shutting in of production based on the point when the marginal costs exceed the revenues from production. If there is a commensurate drop in the costs and overhead of the shut-in marginal production, then the producer will not lose or gain any financial benefit from the drop in production. They will save those reserves for a time when they will be produced profitably. If the industry begins to drop their marginal production in this manner then the declines in prices will be limited on the downside and the record volumes in storage will be yesterdays news.

Within the Resource Marketplace module we will begin to discuss the necessary changes to the makeup of the service industry and resource marketplace. The division of labor and how the services are provided to the producers will need to be changed if in one month there may be no production at certain facilities. Otherwise the industry will have to make due with $2.52 gas.

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. 

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXII (General Part III)

Of the research that has been undertaken by People, Ideas & Objects. Three individuals work has had the greatest impact on the development of the work that has been undertaken here. They are Professors Giovanni Dosi, Richard Langlois and Carlota Perez. Our third pass through the Preliminary Specification used Professor Dosi’s 1988 paper “The Sources Procedures and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation”. And now we start our fourth pass through the Preliminary Specification which will use the work of Professor Richard Langlois.

Professor Langlois is the professor of economics at the University of Connecticut. His principle area of research is the economics of organizations. Recently, Professor Langlois has focused his research on explaining the changes in corporate organization in the late twentieth and early twenty first century, a set of phenomena he refers to as the Vanishing Hand. The vanishing hand is consistent with the decentralized methods of using the Joint Operating Committee in the Preliminary Specification.

The topics of discussion in this fourth pass will be varied, however, it would be ideal that we could state specifically what a capability is at the end of this pass through the Preliminary Specification. The topics will include capabilities, modularity, transaction cost economics, designing transactions, innovation, specialization and the division of labor, the boundary between markets and firms, among many others. To say that these topics, and Professor Langlois had a strong influence in the makeup of the Preliminary Specification would be an understatement. We will be using the full complement of blog posts that were written on Professor Langlois’ papers. As it stands there are 59 posts in which we reference his work. Therefore this fourth pass may take a while to complete, however I am certain that it will be worthwhile, and tomorrow we will start with the Resource Marketplace 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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. 

The Preliminary Specification Part CLXI (General Part II)

With these last few posts on governance we have come to the end of our third or innovation pass through the Preliminary Specification. This has focused on Professor Giovanni Dosi’s 1988 paper “Sources, Procedures and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation”. We have learned much from this paper, and with its application to the Preliminary Specification we have been able to leverage this knowledge into the oil and gas industry.

We will begin with our fourth pass through the Preliminary Specification tomorrow. This will have a capabilities focus and will highlight the work of Professor Richard N. Langlois, another of our key research providers.

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. 

The Preliminary Specification Part CLX (C&G Part XVII)

Through our discussion of the Preliminary Specification we have noted that the innovative oil and gas producer will have two distinct sources of revenue. The first is the oil and gas production, and the second is the value added process of the capabilities they provide to the various Joint Operating Committees and working groups they participate in. This blog post will discuss the governance over the capabilities to ensure that the revenues are charged to the appropriate partners in the Compliance & Governance module.

With the expanding volume of work required for each barrel of oil produced. The demand for earth science and engineering resources continues to grow. The supply of these resources are somewhat constrained as the ability to increase them in the short to mid term is difficult. People, Ideas & Objects has approached the supply of these technical resources by developing software that defines and supports a greater division of labor and specialization. And by pooling the technical resources available from the partners represented in the Joint Operating Committee. This pooling will take the available capabilities of each producer and match them to the needs of the property to ensure that the requirements are fulfilled. Eliminating the unused and unusable surplus capacity of resources in the industry. Capabilities provided in this fashion will be costed to the joint account on the basis of an industry standard cost that recognizes the education, skill and experience of the resource.

Revenues from the provisioning of engineering and geological capabilities to the Joint Operating Committee are a necessary part of the oil and gas business. With the expansion in the volume of work required for each barrel of oil produced there is commensurate difficulty in securing the capabilities in-house. There is also increased difficulty just to maintain the capabilities. The need for the producer to build the capabilities becomes an issue of how to develop them if they can not source a dedicated revenue stream to support them. By having a dedicated revenue stream to support the engineering and geological costs then the producer can better manage their operation.

In terms of governance the Preliminary Specification will provide the “Capabilities Revenues & Support Interface” in the Compliance & Governance module. This will provide a summary of all of the charges to the various joint accounts and working groups for any engineering and geological resources during the period the user requests. This interface will also have targets for the departments to achieve in terms of their percentage cost recoveries and budgeted incomes. These targets should be able to be allocated to the individual joint accounts.

These revenues should be displayed in the proper context on the “Capabilities Revenues & Support Interface”. That is to say they should be presented in a pro-forma income statement showing the costs of these resources, which would include resource costs and the various other costs of rent, technical support, equipment etc. This would show the progress in terms of how the firm had moved towards meeting its targets.

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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. 

The Preliminary Specification Part CLIX (C&G Part XVI)

The level of innovation within the oil and gas producer has / will become more and more challenging as the earth sciences and engineering disciplines continue their steep trajectories. With so much activity in this area, and the implications being so broad and far reaching there will be areas where substantial value might be left uncultivated by the producer. These could be in the scientific or business areas of the firm and the question becomes who is responsible for seeing that this value is captured? This post will detail how the Compliance & Governance module of the Preliminary Specification will help to deal with this situation.

With our look at technological paradigms and the effect they have on scientific and innovative trajectories in oil and gas. When discussing these points on innovation, it is important to remember that the sciences, the trajectories they are on, and the opportunities they generate for a producer, are accelerating and will continue to do so. With this in mind, we note that Professor Dosi suggests two separate phenomenon are observed:

• First, new technological paradigms have continuously brought forward new opportunities for product development and productivity increases. 
• Secondly “A rather uniform, characteristic of the observed technological trajectories is their wide scope for mechanization, specialization and division of labor within and among plants and industries.” p. 1138

As we have learned these new opportunities will be in the technological and business areas of the firm. The opportunities will be within the scope of the oil and gas businesses competitive advantages of its land and asset base, and earth science and engineering capabilities. However, much of it will also be generated outside of the firms core area, in the service industry, through the further division of labor and specialization, and in non-related business areas that are new and not well serviced by existing businesses. Most of this business value will be easily captured for the firm. That however does not necessarily mean that it should be pursued by the firm. It is critical at these times that the governance model of the firm stick to its knitting and pursue its key competitive strategies. That to move outside of its core strategies, to pick up some of these low lying fruits would be to distract it from the real job at hand. This has to be the job of those who are ensuring the governance model is upheld. At the same time, any value that is in the core competitive strategy that is not realized, must be captured and steps taken to systemically realize the value from that point forward.

To ensure that the firm remains on its competitive strategy there will be one interface developed with two different elements to it. This will be called the “Capabilities & Deployment Additions Interface”. The first element will be a summary of the additions that were made to the “Capabilities Interface”. By reviewing the current additions, i.e. all of the text that was added in the last quarter, to the interface. The user will be able to determine if the firm has been able to maintain its overall focus on developing its capabilities in line with its goals and objectives. If it sees that it is suddenly researching the development of drill bits then it knows that it is on an inappropriate direction. The second element is similar in its characteristics but uses the “Planning & Deployment Interface”. With the deployment of its capabilities it can see that the firm has deployed its resources in a manner that is consistent with the firms objectives and goals. That no capabilities were deployed to commission drilling rigs was done during the quarter.

In the same way that the capabilities and deployment of them can be reviewed, the AFE and Work Orders can be reviewed for the quarter as well. These will provide an understanding of what the firm has done in participation with the partners and other producers in the industry. After reviewing these activities the user of the “Capabilities & Deployment Interface” will be able to ensure that the focus of the producer has remained consistent with the objectives of the firm. Any potential deviations could be dealt with through discussions with the management and corrective actions taken.

Focusing on where it can generate the greatest value is the only concern of the firm. To pursue the value that might be available in other areas is a distraction that should be of no concern to the firm. However, understanding that at the same time there is new value being generated in the firm as a result of the steep trajectories that the relevant and core strategic science is on. That this new value may be reflected in other areas of the firm, and needs to be captured is part of the “Capabilities & Deployment Interface” of the Compliance & Governance 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 and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.