Case Study

Capital Effectiveness Fundamentals: Raising Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills

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The Problem

A multinational oil and gas company recognized it needed to raise its employees’ awareness and knowledge of IPA’s approach for benchmarking capital oil and gas projects to improve the process internally and derive more value.

IPA’s Solution

The IPA Institute developed a series of workshops designed to educate upstream and downstream client employees on the overall value of benchmarking, providing a behind the scenes look at the processes and techniques IPA uses to evaluate capital projects. Benchmark, cost, and other performance data from client projects were incorporated into workshop materials to clearly illustrate how the data are used to measure capital effectiveness. Co-led by IPA Institute and client company instructors, the workshops were separated into three tracks to accommodate specific audiences: Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills.

The Awareness track targeted the client’s business audience in particular, discussing the client’s performance goal and describing IPA’s benchmarking methodology and its benefits. A discussion of IPA’s Pathway to Success for upstream projects and a review of the elements of capital effectiveness fundamentals for downstream projects were also included.

The Knowledge track was designed for both business and project professionals, addressing IPA’s approach to FEL assessment and project and system benchmarking evaluations. Case examples on how IPA pulls a project analysis together and crafts the key message for the project were also included.

The Skills track was targeted to the project teams, covering key topics including cost normalization, IPA’s cost models, and tips for completing IPA’s project evaluation workbooks. Metrics from IPA’s Cost Engineering Committee (CEC)/Upstream CEC and case examples to highlight difficult or problematic cost analyses were also covered.

“It became clear to me how IPA uses the data we provide to benchmark our projects. I got more insight on how to complete the workbook for subsequent benchmark-ups requests that we may have for IPA.”

“From my upstream background, [I] got a better understanding on benchmarking downstream projects, [and a] better detailed appreciation of project benchmarking—i.e., cost models, metrics, and workbooks.”

“Excellent, I will be doing [an upcoming] site benchmarking with IPA and will [be] better prepared and comfortable about proceeding this year.”

Delivery and Client Use of the Results

After attending the custom-built workshops on-site at client offices around the world, client business and project professionals now have a better understanding of how to get the most out of an IPA project interview, which helps to improve the efficiency of the overall process.

Key contact

View Andrew Griffith’s profile

Andrew Griffith

Director, Consortia Membership & the IPA Institute

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