Transfer of Service Knowledge: A case from the oil industry

The general trend in engineering design is to consider issues related to the product lifecycle during the design of a product. Hence, the capture of knowledge arising during the operation phase (service) and the feedback of this to engineering designers is an important aspect of complex products. The reuse of this knowledge is even more critical when customized machines are involved. The aim of this paper is to investigate the knowledge arising during the later phases of a product’s lifecycle focusing in particular upon the transfer of experience between projects and between different user groups. A case study of drilling machinery for offshore oil rigs has been selected. This choice arose from the unique characteristics of this industry where solutions are specific for each rig, so re-design or adaptation of machineries and assembly is required in each project and it’s imperative to have a correct set of requirements and design. As the drilling machines are one-off machines, the transfer of experience between projects and knowledge from operational experience is essential. Interviews with the project team from the company owning the rig (drilling contractor), and the service engineers from the supplier of drilling equipment have been carried out focusing upon mechanisms, initiators, barriers and drivers of experience transfer between projects. The analysis of the interviews shows the importance of cross-project experience transfer and the results can be used to support and organize the communication between projects in a more efficient and systematic manner. The results also show that communication is one way- from design to service only.