Intelligent Operations Industry Research Survey by Operational Sustainability, LLC

This survey is focused on benchmarking organizations on their existing Operational Excellence maturity. People who take part in this survey will receive a free copy of the report we generate from the survey results. This survey has 21 questions and will take 7-10 minutes to complete.

Achieving Operational Excellence from an OE 4.0 perspective means the focus needs to shift from merely achieving compliance to managing overall risk and improving operational performance. The outcomes include a safer and more resilient, effective, and profitable organization.

Complete the survey by December 1, 2021 to be entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card. You will also receive a free copy of the report in exchange for your participation.

Question Title

* 1. In what industry sector does your company primarily operate?

Oil and Gas, Upstream

Oil and Gas, Midstream

Oil and Gas, Downstream

Chemical/Petrochemical

Electric Utility/Power Generation

Mining/Metals

Pulp & Paper

Other (please specify)

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* 2. Roughly how many full-time employees does your organization (across all locations) have?

Less than 100

101-500

501-2500

2501-10,000

10,000+

Question Title

* 3. How many facilities does your company manage (fully or partially owned)?

2-5

6-10

11-20

21-50

51-100

101+

Question Title

* 4. Do you have an overall framework and/or standard for Operational Excellence (OE)?

Yes

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* 5. Do you feel like your current OE framework or standard is adequate to achieve the desired outcome?

Yes

N/A

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* 6. What are your top business drivers for seeking OE? (select up to 4)

Experienced a significant incident in the recent past

Achieve enhanced compliance assurance

Improve asset availability and utilization

Improve production efficiency and optimization

Enable effective operations and greater operational discipline

Enhance workforce competency and resiliency

Continuous improvement

Improve capital projects and capital effectiveness

Create a more resilient supply chain

Other (please specify)

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* 7. When you think about OE today, which departments are involved in your organization? (select all that apply)

EH&S / Process Safety

Engineering

Operations

Process Engineering / Production

Maintenance & Reliability

Inspection

Supply Chain

Human Resources / Training

Quality / Lab

Capital Projects / Planning & Scheduling

Other (please specify)

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* 8. From a process safety perspective, how would you rate your performance overall during the past five years?

Poor – Excessive incidents, lack of cultural buy-in

Below Average – More incidents than we would like, culture underperforming

Average – A few incidents, concerned there are some near misses, but mostly in compliance

Above Average – No incidents, some near misses, we go above and beyond the basics required by compliance

Exceptional – No incidents, almost no or no near-misses, process safety is a core value of the organization

Question Title

* 9. What are your top three maintenance challenges today? (select up to 3)

Poor work order closure

Poor EAM data management

Bill of Materials lacking

Excessive downtime when failures occur

Inability to detect or predict potential failures

Excessive equipment failures

Lack of availability of spare parts

Lack of reliability engineering capability as an organization

Lack of proper prioritization of maintenance activities

Other (please specify)

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* 10. What is the average age of your facilities across your organization?

0-3 years

4-10 years

11-20 years

21-30 years

31-40 years

41+ years

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* 11. Over the past 3 years, what percentage of your turnarounds, outages, or capital projects came in at least 10% over budget?

<10%

11-25%

26-40%

>41%

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* 12. Do you have a Conduct of Operations (aka Operational Discipline) management system that you execute across all of your plants today?

Yes

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* 13. What is the average industry experience level of your staff across all personnel at your plants today?

0-3 years

4-7 years

8-15 years

16-25 years

26-35 years

36+ years

Question Title

* 14. How has COVID-19 affected your facility? (select all that apply)

We all work from home

We have implemented social distancing and extensive health monitoring along with proper PPE

We have modified our shift schedules to spread out overall efforts

We have reduced our production throughput or turned off some production units

We won’t let contractors in our plants

We are at or near full capacity

Reduced our capital planning and OpEx

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 15. How are you using mobile applications today and what more would you like them to be able to do for your facility? (select all that apply)

Capture data and readings generically (i.e. simple forms)

Improve in the analysis of data and reporting

Inspection data management

Auditing and EH&S compliance activities

Provide situational awareness to frontline workers

Connect with and collaborate with subject matter experts

Procedural automation and execution (Intelligent Procedures on a tablet)

Work notifications and work order generation

Warehouse inventory management

Intelligent, interoperable work process enablement

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 16. What are your top three OE business priorities over the next 18 months? (select your top 3 initiatives)

Develop a business strategy

Achieve leadership buy-in

Create an effective business case for OE

Pilot some use cases

Create an implementation strategy

Other (please specify)

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* 17. Which group or groups in your company own Operational Risk Management software today?

Maintenance & Reliability

EH&S

Operations

Supply Chain

Plant Management

Engineering

Other (please specify)

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* 18. Given that most companies utilize software solutions at a departmental level or to solve specific challenges, do you see this as an issue in improving operations and managing risk?

Yes

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* 19. Do you have a comprehensive view of risk across your operations including EH&S, PSM, and Structural / Process / Asset Integrity?

Yes

Question Title

* 20. If you answered no to Question 19, why not? (select all that apply)

No departmental software standard. Lots of point solutions at a departmental level

We have more homegrown software, than off-the-shelf software

Each department acts autonomously, which results in lack of any software that is common beyond a departmental level (i.e. Maintenance and EH&S don’t talk a lot or share the same goals for software initiatives)

We don’t have a risk registry beyond the EH&S department

We don’t have a common risk ranking matrix across the organization

We lack a holistic set of metrics beyond any one department that lead to a comprehensive way to prioritize all risks from a uniform perspective

We don’t have a corporate standard for risk ranking. Each site can choose its own way to prioritize risk

We lack business drivers to justify a comprehensive solution

Other (please specify)

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* 21. Where do you plan to invest in OE over the next 12-18 months? (select your top 3 initiatives)

Emissions & Compliance Management

Safety / Process Safety Management

Operational Discipline / Conduct of Operations

Asset Integrity

Maintenance & Reliability

Asset Performance Management (i.e., Asset Strategy, Asset Health)

Supply Chain

Engineering (i.e., Relief Device Management, Process Safety Information, Alarm Management)

Performance Maximization (i.e., Advanced Process Control, Control Optimization)

Workforce Capability (i.e., Competency, Training, etc.)

Metrics and Reporting

Question Title

* 22. Please enter your email to be entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card and to receive a copy of the survey results when the polling period is closed. By entering your email address, you acknowledge that you are opting-in to periodic marketing emails from OS. You can unsubscribe at any time, and OS will never sell or share your information.

100% of survey complete.