Australia’s oil and gas resources are becoming more unconventional, and the workforce management approaches to exploit these resources must also become more unconventional. The shift from conventional to unconventional resource plays, beginning with coal seam gas and now including shale resources, has had a major impact on every aspect of the upstream process. This entails the delivery of upstream gas capacity and on-going gas delivery for thousands of wells across several years, which is much more like a manufacturing process rather than one-off projects—compared to conventional gas where only a few wells are drilled per year.
Perfecting the gas factory concept is still in its early days in Australia, with more focus remaining on the work than the workforce. As equipment and infrastructure support the work to be delivered, culture and workforce structures (organisational structures, performance plans and people strategies, etc) support the workforce that will execute the work.
The ability to establish a factory-like culture will drive a workforce with a manufacturing mindset and if supported by the right workforce structures will encourage behaviour needed to be successful in the manufacturing environment.
The companies and suppliers that are able to reinvent themselves as manufacturers, both in what they do and how they think, will realise the highest returns.
This extended abstract explores the changes needed in workforce structures through examples in oil and gas (shale developments and coal bed methane, etc), manufacturing drawing lessons and insights for Australia’s growing unconventional oil and gas sectors.
