An operator’s Basic Guide to better oil and gas operations scheduling

An operator’s Basic Guide to better oil and gas operations scheduling®

Operations software to get the right stuff done in the oilfield every day.

Are you getting ground down by long days managing operations as production ramps up and teams stay small? Are you haunted by worries about a potential leak? You’re not the only one.

Between keeping track of what needs to be done for compliance and equipment maintenance, managing the crisis of the day, and avoiding dropped balls at shift changes, operators face a non-stop challenge to keep production humming, OPEX costs down, and avoid spill risk. 

With new data, systems, and compliance regs piling on, it no longer works to run operations off a whiteboard or spreadsheet.  Add disjointed communication with missed emails, dropped calls, and unreadable paperwork, and dispatching field teams can quickly become like a game of “telephone” with misunderstandings or duplicate effort sucking time and delaying fixes.

There’s a better way to run oil and gas operations and companies managing 10% of Canada’s production are using it. EZ Ops operations software is built by operators and proven to save operations teams hours every week, plus drive time. EZ Ops helps you take the guesswork out of getting the right stuff done.

What are the typical tasks managed in oil and gas field operations scheduling software?

Operators face two sides of scheduling that are most likely to risk dropped balls: compliance and preventative. Each type of task presents its own unique set of challenges. 

oil and gas producers want more efficient field operations teams

1. Compliance Calendar Inspections

When it comes to compliance, everything is on a calendar. You have your daily/weekly tasks, like checking if something is “normal”; your monthly tasks, like regulated tank inspections, and your annual tasks, the good ole third-party certified inspections.

With so much data to track, it’s easy to see how things can slip through the cracks. Then there’s hell to pay at reporting time.  Without centralized communications for your team, your operations can become strained very quickly. 

Regulations and compliance standards are only becoming more strict, which means there will be even more added to an operator’s plate in the years to come. Take MSAPR, for example. Multi-sector air pollutants regulations didn’t exist a few years ago, and rest assured, there will be more to follow. 

2. Preventative maintenance scheduling

Are you on about your fourth attempt to try and build in calendar alerts or reminders not to drop maintenance balls?

These tasks will fit into everyone’s calendars differently, but cannot be ignored or forgotten. That’s a million-dollar mistake waiting to happen.

How oil field operations scheduling should work for field operations teams.

In a perfect world, operators would be able to enter their data in one place, online or offline, on-site or in the office. 

And operations teams need a way to manage maintenance, inspections, compliance activity, and pigging that takes them less time, not more and from one scheduling and reporting tool.

That’s what users of EZ Ops experience, and it gives them the ability to reduce downtime, prevent compliance issues, and efficiently coordinate activity with third-party inspectors by freeing up time sorting their day-to-day schedules. Check out the video.

With EZ Ops, everyone on the operations team logs in to one system for access to:

  • Daily task lists for their area or assets
  • Scheduled alerts for compliance and maintenance tasks
  • Consolidated tasks by location so no unnecessary site visits
  • One-stop data entry, tied into other essential systems
  • Real-time communication across teams
  • Tracking of completed tasks

There’s less admin time, faster communication and less stress to help operations teams to avoid mistakes, redundant work, and bigger slip-ups like wrecks. 

How does EZ Ops make scheduling easier?

To help operators optimize their performance, EZ Ops oil and gas operations technology can schedule and track all required field activity. Once your data is synced into the system, it becomes clear what are top priorities for today in your activity schedule.

Day in the life: 

  • Operators pull up to a site, and check on EZ Ops to see what actions need to be performed at that location. EZ Ops consolidates tasks by location, making sure they visit once and get everything done the first time. 
  • Operators check off tasks by answering questions with real-time updates communicated across the team.
  • Foremen gain confidence that field teams are not missing anything, and that compliance and preventative operations are standardized across team-members and assets. 
  • Foremen and lead operators also gain a “big picture” view of activity providing insights on operations priorities beyond routine maintenance and compliance.

Beyond using hours in the day efficiently, EZ Ops helps implement cost forecasting to support decision-making when it comes to various preventative maintenance schedules. You can see your year over year or the monthly accounting roll up for an even better snapshot into the health of the operation.

No obligation – see what EZ Ops is like.

Let us show you a different way to schedule to cut admin time and communication hassle. We can also connect you to peers using us to hear their review.

Need to get others to make time for this? Share around our scheduling fact sheet.

See how EZ Ops proactive compliance management software can reduce effort from days to hours.
Patrick Herren picture

About Patrick Herren, Director of Customer Experience

Pat’s been operating numerous assets around Alberta for the past decade and knows firsthand the demands of the job working in the oil patch as a former production operator.

Pat leads our on-boarding and training team, providing responsive helpful service that has earned EZ Ops a 100% adoption track record in the field.