Consulting with rig crews was a vital part of the testing process for the Vision IQ technology, writes Kathrine Schmidt.

Close collaboration with drill teams helped developers figure out what would be helpful in terms of safety, and not something that would just be an annoyance or cause other problems.

Marsden Group teams, including company president Andy Pratt, spent days with the drillers and in the cabin collecting information and feedback.

“How you collaborate with them has made all the difference,” he said. “If you’re at arm’s length with the guys and then drop your tech, there can be a lot of friction.

“If you’re in there with them, letting them drive the designs, that’s when everything changed.”

Their conclusions — while the technology includes a 3D modelling environment on a screen or tablet, drillers did not want to have to keep an eye on something else on the already-busy drill floor.

Instead, the preference was for an alarm — a warning sound when somebody started to stray where they should not, and a harsh loud tone for somebody in a very unsafe red zone.

The system can be configured to halt moving components when a worker is in harm’s way. However, rig personnel pointed out that a system with too many stoppages could be problematic, creating well delays and pressure on the crew from management.

As a result, in the early stages of implementation the equipment will just slow down when an incursion is detected, and the stopping technology can be adopted later as crews become accustomed and the software fine-tuned.

Another key piece of feedback came on personnel identification, Pratt said. Initially, the developers had planned to use facial recognition to keep track of who went where and did what.

However, drillers said this felt too much like Big Brother or the police, more a surveillance device than a tool to improve safety.

Instead, people will just be identified by job title — roughneck, for instance — providing feedback the rig contractors can also use to address training needs.

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Tapping into feedback from the drill floor