Software Design and Development for the Oil and Gas Industry 

Over many decades, Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®) has performed a broad spectrum of research and development efforts for the oil and gas industry. The capabilities and experience of the Information Systems Engineering Department (ISED) are particularly applicable to initiatives such as “Field of the Future” and “Digital Oilfield.”

Enterprise Systems Development

The oil and gas industry recognizes the benefits of implementing enterprise systems to increase exploration, production and recovery. With significant experience in enterprise system development (ESD) from business process reengineering through system deployment, ISED staff members have the technical expertise to support the development and deployment of business and technology process solutions for oil and gas operations.

The ESD life cycle includes process modeling to develop systems that are driven by the business model. This life cycle functions efficiently and effectively irrespective of the technical domain to which it is applied.

Example of SwRI-developed data and map-based visualization

Data Warehouse and Data Mining

An effective data warehouse enables clients to dramatically increase their return on investment (ROI) by analyzing detailed information in a wide variety of ways. Viable candidates for incorporation into a data warehouse in the oil and gas industry include:

• Lease acquisition and financial data
• Seismic data
• Well log data
• Down-hole sensor data
• Upstream and downstream corrosion data
• Production equipment and performance data

ISED engineers have extensive experience with stand-alone and enterprise database engines, including commercial and open source products, to produce solutions that maximize ROI for a variety of exploration, production, refining and distribution endeavors. Experience includes:

• Industry standard data modeling tools
• Extract, transform and load (ETL) tools
• Warehouse development tools
• Data mining tools for business intelligence (BI) and executive information systems (EIS)

Schematic of typical SwRI-developed data warehouse architecture

Engineering Workflow Process

Oil and gas companies understand that standardization of engineering workflow processes is a key factor in staying competitive. ISED engineers have participated in numerous projects to provide process support to large organizations, and are highly skilled in creating quality solutions to facilitate the workflow process.

Data and Map-Based Visualization

Data and map-based visualization allows petrochemical professionals to view large quantities of data in flexible formats for quick interpretation and analysis. ISED provides clients with high-quality user interfaces by designing, specifying, implementing, documenting and managing the visual appearance of computer-based information displays.

Systems Integration

The multitude of IT systems in a typical oil and gas company present a significant challenge for systems integration. ISED engineers have extensive experience in building enterprise systems using service-oriented architectures (SOA) and bridging the gap between new and legacy systems to enable enterprise-wide reporting capabilities.

The Information Systems Engineering Department at SwRI is committed to reliably producing the highest quality work through a proven systems engineering process. Our commitment to excellence is evident through our appraised attainment of Level 5 within the Software Engineering Institute’s (SEI) Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI®). This distinction is held by a limited number of American companies and even fewer applied research and development institutions. ®CMMI is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by Carnegie Mellon University.

Example of Enterprise Systems Development Life Cycle

For more information about Information Systems Engineering, visit www.ised.swri.org.

This flyer was published in April 2009. For more information about Software Design and Development for the Oil and Gas Industry, contact Steven H. Rodgers, Phone (210) 522-3772, Fax (210) 522-4228, or Kenneth D. Irvin, Phone (210) 522-2593, Fax (210) 522-4227, Automation and Data Systems Division, Southwest Research Institute, P.O. Drawer 28510, San Antonio, Texas 78228-0510.

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