Modern life is connected. Our computers, phones, and watches are all tapped into personal insights, from a daily planner to keep track of meetings and appointments to a health monitor tracking everything from heart rate to blood oxygen level in real time. This connectivity has bled over into many different facets of our lives, including work.
Business and industry maintain critical connections allowing for simplification of complex tasks and the monitoring of machines for safety and performance.
As the oil field has become more connected, increasing opportunities for automation have been introduced into both new and existing oilfield technologies with aims to achieve new levels of productivity and safety. Whether it is a robotic arm on the drill floor of a rig bringing pipe from the stand to the well or autonomous robots being used for inspections and other operation observations in hard-to-reach or remote places, if the connectivity is there it opens the door to a vast, new toolkit for contractors and operators alike.
In 2023, a group of contractors came together to help define the next steps in automation for floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessels.
