2012May/June

From the President: Sparking performance improvement

Stephen Colville, IADC president

By Stephen Colville, IADC president

“The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.”

– Woodrow Wilson

During my first days as president of IADC, I’ve been doing a lot of listening. I’m listening to land drilling contractors. I’m listening to deepwater and shallow-water drilling contractors. I’m listening to producers and equipment suppliers.

As IADC staff undertakes the strategic review to outline the future direction of this association, we must have really heard and fully understood our members’ concerns. We need to know what they need IADC to focus on over the next five years.

Although that review is only just beginning to take shape, one fact has become clear: IADC is not in the trade association business; we’re in the performance improvement business, and we are the spark that makes it happen. IADC exists to catalyze members’ efforts to improve personal and company performance.

A key part of how we will do this is around competencies. For example, we’re exploring the development of KSA’s (knowledge, skills and abilities) for drilling positions; a workshop was held earlier this year at a NASA facility in Houston to examine the project scope. We’re also continuing significant efforts with WellCAP to ensure it is focused on critical skills. A revised Drilling Supervisory Level curriculum has been completed, and more program enhancements are under way.

IADC’s various committees make up another vital component of how we drive change and improvement in the industry. We will be reviewing the structure and processes of existing committees to make sure that critical topics are on the agenda and that committee functions are facilitating expeditious decision-making. Further enabling the participation of members from different geographical areas around the world is another key goal. IADC is a global organization, and our committees must be driven by a diverse membership.

In addition, IADC will look at potentially creating new committees, standing or ad hoc, to more fully address topics of high importance, such as process safety. The maintenance of critical equipment is another area that may benefit from more concentrated efforts. In particular, the ability to capture and share real-time in-field equipment performance data is emerging as a critical challenge for better performance.

Doubtlessly, these ideas and IADC’s work scope will evolve as our strategic review progresses. However, it is clear that our members want us to be far more proactive, and we intend to meet that challenge.

The flip side of that is, our members must be willing to do the same. As the old saying goes, “The world is run by the people who show up.” IADC relies totally on the willingness of our members with key knowledge, experience and skills to get fully involved and help drive personal and company performance improvement.

I am looking forward to meeting as many of you as I can, and working with and for you all.

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