Kaizen Institute - Success Story

Energy

Daily KAIZEN™

Client Profile

A major Western Canadian heavy oil producer.

Improvement Potential

Our client was battling the rising costs of delivering facilities projects associated with Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) well pads. Combined with the 50% decline in the price of oil, our client was looking to reduce costs in order to remain competitive. Kaizen Institute was engaged to identify waste and remove non-value added work when delivering well pad facilities related projects.

KAIZEN™ success story mining
kaizen-approach-success

Root Causes

The extraction of heavy oil occurs at surface facilities called well pads, which typically contain multiple pairs of steam injection and heavy oil production wells. SAGD well pads have a limited production life with declining production over time, creating the need for new well pads to be developed and built on a continual basis to maintain and maximize levels of production.

Our Approach

  • The main goal of identifying waste and the removal of non-value added work was to reduce the Lead Time required to deliver the well pad projects
  • Kaizen Institute facilitated KAIZEN™ events with the individual functional project teams to identify wasteful activities and determine solutions to minimize these activities
  • Suggestions for improvement were then rated with respect to impact on Lead Time reduction and ease of implementation
  • Improvements were implemented by our client, with assistance and guidance from Kaizen Institute
kaizen-approach-success

Key Results

  • Functional project teams felt empowered and exhibited boosted morale by witnessing the implementation of their suggestions; they were a major part of the solution to improve the business
  • Over 200 ideas were put forward by the functional teams; this resulted in a reduction of Lead Time in excess of 25%, eliminating 4 weeks of schedule per well pad
  • A single day saved in project execution was calculated to be worth approximately $50K; this project has saved over $3M per well pad
  • The team has adopted a new way of executing projects; development of a templated well pad design, use of a project “war room” and the development of more robust project management skills are all planned to maintain the improvements made
arrow up