Oil-tech:

Tech docs down the well
Oil well services giant Schlumberger harnesses XML power...

WHEN OIL WELL services giant Schlumberger decided to set up an XML publishing system and convert their business-critical documents to XML, they had a problem on their hands. For seventy years, the firm has worked to a de-centralized business model - and currently has bases all over the globe that essentially do their own thing. Up until now, this also applied to their publishing endeavors: With the advent of personal computers and desktop publishing, each of the many Schlumberger technical and training centers developed highly-tuned and customized publishing systems, designed for their own content.

"Although this worked well in many respects, one major downside was it was difficult to move technical communications specialists around because they had to be familiar with the applications used to develop and design content - and everyone was using different systems," relates Mike Smith, documentation standards manager at the Oilfield Services division of Schlumberger. "In addition, we were having to duplicate a lot of effort because every time we moved content from one place to another, we would have to re-draft or re-format it."

On top of this, Schlumberger had huge amounts of content in legacy form. Much of it was on paper. A complete inventory of all the documents at the company, revealed they had around 65,000 technical documents in total. Out of that they came up with a list of business-critical material that would be converted to XML.

Hi-tech down the bore-hole
Historically, the core business of Schlumberger Oilfield Services is measuring the geophysical properties of oil wells and the fluids they produce. Sophisticated instruments are run into bore-holes during and after drilling to measure their reservoir properties and analyze the fluids in situ or when flowing. Schlumberger can then tell oil companies whether or not they've struck oil; and, if so, what type of oil it is and whether it is producible.

Over the last seventy five years, Schulmberger Oilfield Services has built a large suite of services that cover the life of oil reservoirs. These range from seismic exploration (to locate reservoirs), through reservoir evaluation and development (using drilling services and downhole measurements) and well productions services; to reservoir engineering, integrated project management, and data processing.

"It's a highly technical business and each of the instruments and systems used in exploration, down bore-holes, or to help monitor and enhance production, have complex documents explaining how to use them and maintain them," explains Mr Smith.

Schlumberger Oilfield Services also has hundreds of technical documents and manuals for their trucks and surface systems, as well as for internal software, data acquisition, and data management systems.

Standardizing materials
With so much material needing to be converted to XML, the major issue was standardizing it all. "We were using a lot of Microsoft Word and FrameMaker templates," relates Mr Smith. "But the more templates you have, the more coding is needed to convert to XML from each template. So the Schlumberger team tried to standardize as much as possible before sending the materials to Data Conversion Laboratory for conversion."

They also had to prepare some of their paper documents for conversion. First they ran these through an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine. Then outsourced editors checked for errors and put the materials into MS Word files that conformed to a standard template that could be fired through the DCL conversion process.

In addition to this "conventional" content, Schlumberger also had a large volume of SGML and HTML content, so DCL was asked to develop the necessary mapping tables and then convert this content to XML.

Fast Publishing
Most of the conversions are now complete, and Schlumberger are currently putting the finished product into their XML-based Electronic Document Management System (EDMS), which uses the Sigmalink product. Attached to the EDMS of this database is a set of stylesheets, built with Arbortext (PTC), that make it quick and easy to publish material in many different formats.

"You simply grab a configured document, drop it on an icon that says PDF or HTML, and in a few minutes you have a fully-formatted PDF or HTML file. This can then be put into our Web-based delivery system," says Mr Smith.

Operatives at oil wells or operations bases, anywhere in the world, can then connect their laptop computers or other devices to the Schlumberger online information delivery system - called InTouch - to download the latest information.

"We've had a corporate internet for more than eighteen years - in fact, we were running an internet before there was an internet," continues Mr Smith. "And virtually all our field locations are connected within our network."

Long term vision
Schlumberger Oilfield Services have a long-term vision of being able to efficiently package and deliver technical content to their field users via the network. "To do this," says Mr Smith, "we need to be able to easily re-purpose information, keep it current, and automate production of content for online delivery. Publishing and shipping paper is not efficient or cost-effective in the modern business environment."

This means field engineers and managers can be based anywhere - on the North Slope or in the middle of West Africa - and always be able to access and download the most current technical information available. They can then use that information to adjust how they are servicing their clients and managing their business.

The movers and shakers at Schlumberger Oilfield Services are in no doubt that the future is in real-time information delivery. The new Schlumberger XML-based EDMS and publishing system will play a key role in this - because the more systems and instruments you put in place, the more technical documents and manuals you need to maintain them.

DCLnews Editorial

Note: Mike Smith wanted to point out that the Schlumberger XML Documentation Initiative is very much a team effort and that he was acting as spokesperson for the global team.

Visit Schlumberger's website at www.schlumberger.com

Read more tech-related articles at DCL Library

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Are you considering setting up an XML publishing system at your company? If so, e-mail convert@dclab.com, or call 718-357-8700, and we'll run through the issues with you.

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