How to trial test a new technology?
Having an excellent product or breakthrough technology is half of the battle. The second part which is the most difficult and important is to sell it to the Client. Days when a salesman closed a deal by presenting the features and benefits of his product are gone. Nowadays it’s almost impossible to make a sell if you don’t understand the needs of the Client and don’t teach him (or her) to solve unknown challenges by using your product or technology. Technology companies need excellent diagnostic skills to design unique solutions from Customer’s needs. But regardless of how good is your product or technology, the Client decides to buy for his reason. One of the reasons is trust in your new product. This trust can be built by performing a trial test of your new technology. Trial testing in the oil and gas industry is a common way to check the performance of downhole tools or technology for enhanced oil recovery before full-field implementation.
The success of trial test starts with a good and constant communication between all stakeholders. It is vital that end-user, budget owners and developers communicate with each other regularly. For instance, the right expectation from new technology helps to avoid misunderstanding during the evaluation phase. The constant dialog between the research team, the operation department, and the budget owner solve a huge number of small questions during the trial test project.
Success criteria of the trial test is an important thing that must meet two requirements: firstly, success criteria have to reasonable with the expectation from new technology and secondly, it has to be measurable and doable. It is necessary to decide what is the benchmark when the performance of new technology compared with traditional ones.
The right well candidate for your trial test is a key to success. It is important to choose a correct well candidate with the required parameters. Technology has to be tested inside its operation envelope. For example, if a new generation of smart completion works in a given range of flow rates to combat with early water breakthrough, the production of well candidate has to be aligned with it.
During the trial test, all findings have to be captured and recorded. Effective learning from the trial test allows improving the prototype of technology fast which leads to the launch of a new project on the market early. Many oil & gas companies borrowed and implement agile principles that initially have been established in IT software development. Agile methodology uses during trial testing of high tech successfully.
Trial test is the gate for the wide introduction of this technology to the market. The owner of the trial test project has to think about the broad implementation of new technology in their company. Most probably working routine will be changed. The new standard operating procedure, workflow, and legal documents are created. It is well known that change is stressful. To make adoption of new tech is easier and smoother, it is necessary to convey information about adding value from using this high tech to the end-user.
Consistent and reliable result of the trial test adds a new brick to build a trust. Trust is the foundation of every long-term business relationship between the Client and your company. Success is built on it.