Stan Stephenson - Reliability Team Leader
“We’re scientists that one might think are part repair men and part vandals!”
I'm the Reliability Team Leader for the equipment designed in our Duncan Technology Center. We are a team of scientists that one might think are part repair men and part vandals, because if a piece of our equipment is broken, we fix it; but if it's not broken, we break it! In my 27 years with Halliburton I've seen a change in how we affect reliability. But in a world ordered around physics, what doesn't change is why things break: Mechanical break downs result from a combination of fatigue, vibration, torsion, heat, and sound waves. So, in our labs, we have special equipment based on the physics of these things that causes equipment failure, physically or virtually. Like time-lapse photography, we are able to compress a lifetime of use into laboratory hours. And, just as time-lapse photography helps us see every day events in a new way, our testing enables tremendous insight into specific causes of failure. Once something fails, we measure, calculate, evaluate, analyze, and sometimes break something all over again!
Reliability testing is different from quality testing. Quality testing determines only if a component or tools work as designed. Reliability testing adds an important difference: performance as designed, over time. In other words, and I don't mean to sound overly scientific, but reliability testing determines the probability that a system, subsystem, equipment or component will perform its intended function under specific conditions for a specified operating time. For example, if a pump is designed to move 5 barrels per minute at 10,000 psi, that's a quality standard. If it can move 5 barrels per minute at 10,000 psi for 1,000 hours before preventive maintenance, that's a reliability standard.
I mentioned that I'd seen a change in how Halliburton affects reliability. Well, we used to think of it as a design feature. This isolated reliability to the responsibility of our technology development team. But, back in 1986 we were working on a new generation of frac equipment called ARC (Automatic and Remote Control). Automated. Remote controlled. Lots of electronics. So, we designed and tested the electronic parts for a high standard of reliability.
But once ARC was in the field, we eventually began to see a declining trend in the equipment's longevity. Like detectives on a serious and high-profile case, this puzzle required our "A" team and some extraordinary analysis. We started by re-evaluating the design. It checked out. So, we then looked beyond design features. And, that's when the clues of the mystery came together. We determined that there had been a change in selected materials and components – changes made to save upfront costs. But, whatever we had saved up front was costing us in the field.
This moment of realization was like a lighthouse beacon through the fog. Reliability is not a feature built in; it is an act of vigilance day in and day out throughout our services and process and the life of any of our equipment or tools. In the case of ARC, analyzing and correcting paid off. We found severe vibration problems that had crept in over time due to cost cutting. The correction showed its value right away – the two problem units worked without failure on over 200 jobs each in the first year after the correction. Retrofit kits were developed to correct this problem on the other units in the field. Here is a video [insert link] that shows the old and new designs being tested side by side on the same shaker table. See if you can tell which is which.
For Halliburton, reliability is now a part of the culture permeating the organization, from development and design through process controls and verification of manufacturing tolerances, to field operations training and procedures, and even the support organizations like procurement and accounting. Achieving reliability means that every day, on every task, in every part of the organization, the whole team is working to eliminate even the smallest factors that lead to downtime or lost opportunities for us or our customers.
