Key Initiatives

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Hess’ Operational Excellence (OE) Network is made up of business leaders and process owners across the company who oversee high-impact, enterprise-level initiatives and align and integrate these efforts to create value for the company. The network enables us to more effectively design and implement key enterprise initiatives by fostering collaboration across Hess’ global resources and creating standardized methodologies supported by tools and processes.

Employing this integrated, cross-functional network helps us to ensure that projects are planned and implemented holistically — for example, by evaluating how a new or changed process will impact other processes throughout Hess. We also establish metrics to monitor the effectiveness of our processes and verify we are sustaining improvements.

In 2018 we will restructure the OE Network to reflect organizational changes made early in the year. The group, which will be composed of technical authorities in various disciplines, will remain focused on overseeing key enterprise-level initiatives.

Over the past several years, we have been working on a number of initiatives to enhance our operational effectiveness and environment, health and safety (EHS) performance, two of which are described below.

EHS Global Standards

Our environment, health, safety and social responsibility (EHS & SR) management system provides an important framework for continuous improvement in enhancing operational excellence, tracking key performance metrics, managing risk and maintaining regulatory compliance. As part of our effort to improve our operational effectiveness and EHS performance we have been working to develop and implement an enhanced set of EHS standards across the company. The goals of this project, which has been guided by our OE Network, are to formalize enterprisewide expectations and accountabilities and support a globally consistent approach to operational excellence. By documenting our expectations in the form of standards, we aim to strengthen assurance across the enterprise.

Following a risk-based approach and our Documents Standard, we prioritized the order of development and implementation for enterprisewide standards into three phases, as shown in the graphic below.
EHS

As part of implementation we require our assets to complete desktop gap assessments in which they compare their current documented practices with the expectations of the enhanced standards and develop actions to close any gaps identified.

In 2017 we continued development and approval of the Phase II and III standards through cross-asset and cross-functional teams, including finalizing and approving standards for dropped objects, behavioral safety and incident reporting and investigation. All assets included within the scope completed gap assessments for the newly approved standards and created implementation plans to align with the project timeline. We are on track to fully implement Phase II standards by the end of 2018 and Phase III standards by the end of 2020.

An important aspect of the standards development process has been the incorporation of Lean principles. For example, we developed a standardized work process to gain efficiency, incorporate lessons learned and track our progress from the start of development through the implementation of each standard. To add clarity for all those involved and to mitigate inefficiencies, we created support tools and guidance documents and made them easily accessible through our company intranet. To bring accountability, we established metrics and charts to track the completion of gap assessments and discussed progress as part of our routine operating rhythm.

Operations of the Future

In 2017 we continued to implement our Operations of the Future (OOTF) operational reorganization and improvement plan. The primary goal of this effort is to enhance operations reliability through a focused cultural shift that promotes a greater sense of ownership over processes and equipment. To accomplish this goal in practice, we’ve been focused on better aligning job duties with business processes to maximize efficiency, reliability, integrity and surveillance; optimize production and costs; and drive continuous improvement, including improvement to EHS performance.

Through OOTF we are generating cross-functional, asset-based teams with a geographic focus. We view OOTF as an integral step in engaging all of our people to deliver as “One Team, One Goal.” The approach helps to break down silos and focuses the entire organization on working in service of our colleagues in the field to help us more effectively respond to the increasing complexity of our technical and operational processes.

We are also redefining roles and responsibilities to provide more clarity for individual job functions and teams. OOTF aims to drive key operational information, decision making and accountability downward within operational teams and to build leadership capabilities into the front line through training and coaching. The new team structure is supported by standardized processes and proactive management. We are focusing in particular on key drivers of efficiency and performance, including reducing unplanned work and deferrals, creating resource capacity and maximizing production. To support these operational improvements, we are also better integrating contractors in day-to-day operations so they are better equipped to be true partners with Hess.

We initially developed and implemented OOTF at our onshore assets, launching the plan at our Bakken asset in late 2015 and continuing with our (now sold) Permian asset in early 2016. Implementation has been ongoing, with our Gulf of Mexico asset completing it in 2017 and rollout in Malaysia slated for 2018.

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