Schlumberger possesses a unique strength in the scale and footprint of its global operations. Each month, our product lines conduct a total of more than one million operating hours, representing a massive reach in serving customer needs as well as in identifying market opportunities. 

Our resource base includes 300,000 mobile assets and 2,500 operating facilities, and we manage more than 80,000 suppliers. However, to leverage scale, not only must you have it, you have to know how to use it. The transformation of research and engineering and the development of initiatives in operational reliability are prerequisite in improving performance and increasing efficiency.

While systems and technology provide the foundation for reliability and efficiency, it is the behavior and actions of people that really make a difference. To achieve a step change in reliability performance, Schlumberger is implementing a new approach in product development, job planning and design, and job execution.

The Wireline Center for Reliability and Efficiency in Port Klang, Malaysia, is where logging tools are maintained and prepared for distribution to jobs across the Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam GeoMarket region. It is also where asset utilization has been changed to consolidate resourcing decisions to a central team that assesses activity across all locations of the GeoMarket region in deploying assets.

As a result, almost 30% of the asset fleet has been released, enabling redistribution of spare equipment to other locations and lowering their capex needs. Another benefit has been the centralization of maintenance expertise, which has improved fleet reliability and reduced tool maintenance time.

Transformation like this enables Schlumberger to reduce annual capital expenditure as existing fleets are redeployed more efficiently. This was the case in 2014, with capex expenditure representing 8%–10% of revenue compared with 12%–13% in previous years.