Recently, I had the opportunity to speak at an executive breakfast briefing hosted by WellPoint Systems in Houston, Texas regarding the value being delivered from the digital oil field. While most of the largest oil and gas companies in the world have a digital oil field strategy, the vision and approach varies by company. As the application of the digital oil field has matured, a clearer picture is developing on best practices, but what continues to elude companies is metrics for the return on investment (ROI).

All oil and gas companies share the same primary goal of needing to extract and produce hydrocarbon as efficiently and cost effectively as possible. One strategy for achieving this objective has been the adoption of a "digital oil field" to enhance reservoir recoverability and optimize production. While the digital oilfield is driving the integration of new and old technology, it has resulted in new challenges for the industry including the appropriate metrics for determining ROI.

Understanding the value of an investment is always a critical component for any company. However, as the approach to the digital oil field becomes more encompassing to include assets across the entire enterprise from field to refinery, there is a need to understand more than the bottom line. The maturing of digital oil field strategies has also increased the need to understand best practices in different areas such as data management, workflows, and collaboration. Of the best practices, we presented examples from Chevron, ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, and Shell. Following is a quick overview:

• Chevron is integrating diverse data sources and applications through open standards and common platform technologies; and using web-based technology to support collaboration.

• ExxonMobil uses standards to enable integration across domains, and facilitate managing assets through their life cycle.

• Saudi Aramco has established a data acquisition and delivery infrastructure as the backbone of its I-Field program; and using it to support early intervention capabilities.

• Shell is building workflows that transform the volume of collected data into actionable information; focused on automated and guided workflows that are capable of capturing incidents and results for better problem solving.

There is certainly no one size fits all for the DOF, but as companies look for more metrics to understand the true performance delivered by their investment, it's essential to have insight on best practices in the field. From our perspective, companies need to establish a foundation that includes the alignment of business and IT. We believe when information technology is aligned with business drivers, companies are able to improve visibility of operations, increase efficiency, improve the decision-making process, and ultimately be a key factor of improved profits and revenue.

Do you think ROI metrics are still lagging DOF investments? What are critical best practices for the DOF?