Inward Significance

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Freddie Ruiz, PVI

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” - Aristotle

Art is an archetypal creative activity and it requires serious emotional commitment. Engineering is creative in other ways, but it is also considered art.

In lots of ways, the creation of a painting is much alike to the development of a software. Artists have the urge to express their thoughts and ideas. They envision the final result in their minds and step by step they create a work of art. They use all the essential tools to express their abstract vision into an artistic reality.

In a similar way, during the development process of a software, ideas are converted into technical designs that are represented by digital reports, flowcharts and databases in which the developers interpret the abstract formulas and logics into a realistic and tangible tool.

As drilling software developers, we have something to create for our clients, not only because it helps them achieve their project goals but also helps them gain more knowledge on the matter. Just like when creating a painting, each layer of color is a step closer to the final piece, when we are developing our software, every idea, thought and process takes us closer to the final result.

The difference between art painting and software development is that software is continuously improving; while a painting once it’s done it’s done.

Let’s take CTEMP, our circulation temperature model as an example of how we improve its features to make it a benefit for our users.

As the search for oil becomes more extreme, the wellbore circulating temperature prediction becomes very critical and in deepwater wells the complications can get more complicated by the presence of risers and choke/kill/boost lines. After combining ideas to create a software that deals with this matter, CTEMP was developed. Aside from predicting the wellbore circulating temperatures, this software addresses the transient heat transfer between the wellbore and the sea water/rock formation and it has interactive on-screen graphic results that provide guidelines for expensive HPHT drilling operations.

After all, with our creative activity and serious commitment we want our products to represent the inward significance of our artistic thinking.

Ingenuity Requires Persistence

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Freddie Ruiz, PVI

There are several quotes from famous authors that talk about how “ingenuity can lead to significant rewards” and how “persistence can be the key to survival”. However, how high are the stakes when it comes to ingenuity and persistence in order to obtain significant rewards?

On the path towards any goal worth striving for, there are going to be obstacles, however, these obstacles cannot stop you from reaching your destination, it’s an opportunity to prove just how much this goal means to you. These are the moments in which to engage in persistence where you simply refuse to be deterred by the hurdles that one finds on any journey worth taking.

Increasing sophisticated and technological software is always the main goal; but simplicity and functionality are without a doubt very essential aspects of a software that must be kept in mind at all times during the developing process.

Technology is advancing unimaginably in today’s world. Each day new technology comes to live and brings the world better products. The drilling industry faces similar expectations and its growth isn’t just demanding but also fundamental for survival. With this in mind, we feel that our drilling software aims to achieve those goals fully. With the help of PVI software, companies worldwide can benefit not only by saving time, but also by saving money while making their operations more efficient and effective.

As an example of how ingenuity requires persistence let’s talk about HYDPRO, our drilling hydraulics model.

When drilling a vertical or an extended-reach well, if the equivalent circulating density (ECD) is either too low or too high, it can cause serious problems or compromise the project. For this reason a successful drilling operation largely relies on achieving the optimal ECD, and an optimized drilling hydraulics software can allow engineers to plan ahead, improve drilling efficiencies and reduce the risks. HYDPRO is a well-developed model, but when it comes to its user-friendly design as well as the interfaces, users will find it very simple and operate it effectively. It provides 3D visualization for planning, as well as summaries and analysis results that can be generated in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats in no time.

HYDPRO covers all aspects of hydraulics, for instance:

Downhole circulating pressures
Surge and swab
Equivalent circulation densities (ECD)
Bit optimization
Hole cleaning
Cuttings concentration
Volumetric displacements

Thanks to a software like HYPDRO, the downhole drilling conditions can be cautiously examined and any potential problems can be identified prior to the job execution.

Today, our computer modeling is getting more advanced and the results are clearly worthwhile, because in the end is all about focusing on ingenuity and focusing on persistence.

The Art of Giving

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Freddie Ruiz, PVI

This week we are going in a different direction toward our blog and we are taking this opportunity to talk about the art of giving. The art of giving is simply defined as giving from the heart without any expectation of something in return.

True giving and happiness are deeply connected and they both come from a place deep within our souls. A gift, no matter how small or large, is something that is enjoyed twice. First by the giver and then also enjoyed by the person who receives the gift.

The act of giving doesn’t have to be limited to holidays or special occasions. You can treat every person you meet as someone who you can give something special to. Let’s not think also that a gift is always something we purchase with our money. A very special form of giving can be personal acts of kindness. More so than we think, it’s not money or material things that people need, it's the things that can't be seen, like a good advice, a kind word, an appreciation, the sharing of some special knowledge, a compliment, a helping hand, some support during a difficult time or even a smile.

We all have something to give. We all have something of value for another person. With most things in this world, there is only a limited amount of what you can give away. Thankfully, generosity and kindness are not associated with these same material limitations and this makes the art of giving something wonderful.

One of life’s most basic laws is "every single act of love, kindness and generosity will multiply and return to you many times over". When you give without any desire of getting something back, your returns will be limitless. To give something from the heart is an action which will fill your life with joy.

The intention behind your giving is the most essential thing. The intention should always be to create happiness for both the giver and the receiver and when the intentions are the right ones it creates a pattern of happiness, joy, trust and love in your life beyond what you could ever expect.

Lao Tsu wrote a long time ago that "Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in Giving Creates Love.” and that my friends is the art of giving.

Writers Blog, Readers Digest

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Freddie Ruiz, PVI

“Though the sky is greyed with storm clouds deciding on if they should release their cargo on us or not, the sun is shining in my soul. Knowing that many times my words have been read makes the effort of creating something new every day all the more worthwhile.”
- John Thibeau (Canadian Writer)

Observing and reading are two of the most efficient ways of learning; they help us make sound and wise decisions when the situation calls for it.

As a writer, I have come to learn that the best way to express something and yet have an effect on the reader is by writing in a simple yet effective way where the foundation of the ideas, logic and purposes is well built. Even though we as writers express our own feelings with our writing, we do keep in mind what the readers want to read about and what interests them.

Writers write about what they observe in life, and that can lead them to have the desire to share all that information in just one article, but can the readers really benefit from all that vast information? Our intentions are the best, but the results are long articles that don’t have the effect intended. The readers will benefit more from articles that focus on a certain matter in which they can absorb the information and obtain good results from it.

In a similar way, we as software developers want our users to benefit from our software rather than getting lost in its complexity, trying to figure out how to use it. In our software development we focus on making the software easy to use, yet practical and professional.

Just like there’s a connection between writers and readers, there’s a big connection between developers and users. When ideas come to create or update a software, we think of ways to give our customers a simplified software, but at the same time a well advanced one, something they can really benefit from, sophisticated yet simple.

Just like writers blog and readers digest, developers create and users benefit. At the beginning of the article we quoted from John Thibeau, who expressed how knowing that people were reading his articles was such an inspiration for him to write better articles, at PVI, we apply those words but with a minor change:

Knowing that many times our software is being used makes the effort of creating something new every day all the more worthwhile.

The Vision of Innovation

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Freddie Ruiz, PVI

“Innovation is not the result of chance; it’s the result of action. It’s not a thing to wait for; it’s a thing to do.”
- Phil McKinney (Award winning author)

Innovation is defined as the act or process of introducing an idea, method or invention that creates value for its inventor as well as for the people that will benefit from its usage.

To be called an innovation, the idea must be reproduced at a competitive price cost and must satisfy a specific need. Innovation involves vision, application of knowledge; it includes all processes by which new ideas are generated and turned into useful products. In business, innovation results when the ideas are applied by a company in order to meet the needs and expectations of the clients.

In a social context the process of innovating is called:

The vision of innovation.

The vision of innovation is divided into two broad categories:

1. Evolutionary - Innovations that are constant and dynamically brought about by many incremental advances in technology or processes.

2. Revolutionary - Innovations that are sporadic and are often disruptive and new.

The vision of Innovation is synonymous with risk-taking; companies that create revolutionary products or technologies take on the greatest risk because they create new markets and they strive to be creative. So, what are we trying to say here? The companies that come up with breakthrough products and services are game-changers in their sectors or those that create new sectors relentlessly strive to follow a unique strategy. These companies are called “Visionary companies”, because they focus on achieving unique strategic aims, rather than innovation for innovation’s sake. This initiative results in breakthrough innovation.

As a drilling software company, we have a focused innovation initiative that is aligned with strategy. This is done through brainstorming, in compliance with the latest drilling technologies that generate ideas to come up with specific strategic methods, products and services. We use the vision of innovation as a tool that enables us to achieve our goals and that of our customers.

One Hundred Percent

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Freddie Ruiz, PVI

"I'll take fifty percent efficiency to get one hundred percent loyalty."
- Samuel Goldwyn (American Producer)

It’s well known that time and cost overruns are very common in the oil and gas industry. As a matter of fact, most projects deal with one or both problems, yet there is an alternative: the industry could reduce costs and accelerate projects by implementing advanced models that bring good benefits and are very efficient.

Being efficient means achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted efforts and/or expenses.

For a company to have an effective way in its productivity there has to be a change that influences its efficiency; a change that identifies the difference between doing the right thing and doing things right.

In the beginning process of developing a software here at PVI, we put into consideration what is effective for our clients but more so, what is efficient. We think of what can be done to make our clients' workload lighter yet progressive. With our software, casing wear can be predicted, centralizer placement can be optimized, torque and drag can be calculated, mud reporting can be simpler, and many other things can be performed. One of our priorities is to produce a software that gives our clients their desired or intended result.

A software that’s efficient is a software capable of doing processes that save time, money and efforts. That's a good characteristic to have in a software, because it helps the companies that use it to be effective at getting results.

Instead of just striving to design an effective software, we strive to design a software that is efficient at being effective. Similar to what Samuel Goldwyn stated, instead of taking 50% of efficiency, we intend to take 100% efficiency to get 100% of loyalty from our satisfied customers.

High Five

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Freddie Ruiz, PVI

The use of the expression “High Five” began in the early 70’s and it was a form of saying “way to go” for an accomplishment no matter how small or large. With this in mind, let’s take a moment to talk about one of the characteristics that also describes our software:

User-friendliness is the ease of use and learnability of a man-made object for humans to interact with, for example, a software, website, tool and a machine just to mention a few. User-friendly includes procedures of measuring usability, such as needs analyses and studies of the principles behind an object’s efficiency. When designing a software, the elegance and the clarity of its interaction with users are very essential.

The primary idea of user-friendly is divided in 3 categories:

More efficient to use - it takes less time to accomplish a particular task
Easier to learn - any operation can be learned by observing the object
More satisfying to use

Complex software programs find their way into everyday life and this has made user-friendly more popular in recent years, as more companies see the benefits of researching and developing their software with user-oriented methods instead of technology-oriented methods only.

The term user-friendly is often used as a synonym for usable and also refers to accessibility. It’s a description of the quality user experience. By understanding the interaction between the software and the user, we at PVI, work toward providing our customers with what they’re looking for.

When we think of user-friendly we focus on the following:

Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they use the software?
Efficiency: Once users have learned the software, how fast can they complete tasks?
Memorability: When users return to the software after a period of not using it, how easily can they re-establish proficiency?
Errors: How many errors do users make and how easily can they recover from the errors?
Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the software?

User-friendly is associated with the functionalities of our software; in addition to being just a characteristic of the user interface it also separates usefulness into usability and utility. When we evaluate user interfaces for usability and utility, our definition is as simple as: effective fit for purpose and efficiency of the Interface. The term intuitive is also a fitting trait in our user-friendly interfaces, because it’s used as a synonym for learnable; where our users can learn advanced software in a very simple manner.

So basically what we want is for our customers to feel so accomplished when finishing a job that at the end of the day before they turn off their computer they say to our software: “Way to go…high five!”

Visual Thinking Equals Creativity

Posted on November 19, 2014 by Freddie Ruiz, PVI

Logical and visual thinking are two different mental groups that affect the way we view things.

The logical thinking involves analysis, advancement from simple to complex, organization of information and continuous reasoning. This group is influenced by hearing and language and a perception of time.

In contrast, visual thinking involves synthesis, an intuitive comprehension of complex systems, coordinated processing of concepts, inductive reasoning from the whole aspect to the small aspects, use of imagination and generation of ideas by combining existing facts in new ways, in other words, creative thinking. This group is influenced by visualization and images and a perception of space.

For the visual thinking group, concepts are rapidly understood when presented with visuals. Once the spatial thinking group has an image of a concept and sees how the information fits with what they already know, their learning ability is permanent. It’s their best learning style. To them, images are their main motivation and it is how they experience success in their own way. With this in mind, here at Pegasus Vertex, Inc. we put a lot of effort into our software development to give our clients a sophisticated visual experience of what goes on below the ground and under the sea. We use diverse visualizations, such as schematics and graphs that provide a live feed of the operations.

Visual thinking is one of our main focuses when creating the software.

Why?

Because visuals are a more effective way in understanding the goals of the project, whether it is mud reporting, drilling hydraulics, casing wear prediction, cementing jobs, wellbore trajectory, tubing movement or split flow analysis. With creativity we give our customers the software that fits their needs.

Safety-Minded Pilot

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Freddie Ruiz, PVI

Pilots who fly planes or any type of aircraft have a preflight inspection checklist consisting of more than 30 items. If the pilots do not carefully follow the checklist each time before take-off, they increase the possibility of a tragic accident. Do you know what type of pilot is specially urged to complete the checklist every time? It is the very experienced pilot! A seasoned pilot could easily skip some of the details thinking nothing is going to happen, but an experienced one takes this checklist very seriously.

Like a safety-minded pilot, service companies and drilling engineers make survey calculations that are fundamental and necessary to monitor and control wellbore trajectories. Initially, the oil and gas industry was concentrated on drilling vertical wells. The concept of inclination angle began when engineers realized that a drilled wellbore trajectory was not a plumb line. Then the concept of azimuth angle arose when they found out that a drilled trajectory can deviate from a vertical well. A wellbore trajectory is a continuous curve in space that bends and turns simultaneously.

The oil and gas industry has acknowledged the importance of survey calculation for more than 50 years and has extensively applied the research results in the field. Inclinometers can only give parameters from separate survey stations and cannot give the real profile of a wellbore trajectory. Therefore, a proper method of survey calculation must be on the basis of a 3D wellbore trajectory model. A software with the help of simple methods can be sufficiently accurate and precise for these types of well such as extended-reach wells and multi-target wells.

By combining the survey calculations with visualization technology, PVI has developed PathView (Well Path Visualization) which provides an interactive, true 3D view of single and multiple wells.

Some of the features included in PathView are:

True 3D-rendered wellpath visualization
Anti-collision calculation
Surface lease lines
Lithology
Up to 5000 rows of survey data
Plots specified wellbore range
Up to 10 sidetrack levels
Plots and prints detailed well profiles
Plan view, Section view, 3D view and Dogleg

Precautionary methods are an effective way for safety-minded pilots to buy time to reevaluate the flight conditions. Pilots, who understand their aircraft systems, follow standard operating procedures and use conservative risk management techniques, will diminish inconvenient situations from further becoming worse; just like the ability to see the well path in a 3D work space is essential for engineers to visualize the development plan, understand it and therefore, avoid well collisions.

The Whole Package in a Small Package

Posted on November 5, 2014 by Freddie Ruiz, PVI

The phrase “The Whole Package” is defined as:

All the elements constituting a whole or occurring as a unit.
Something or someone that possesses a full set of relevant characteristics.

This expression is often used to describe something that is of good choice; something that has everything that one needs for a specific matter or something that possesses all that one is searching for.

With all the advancements technology has achieved, it is marvelous how it keeps evolving in ways that are far beyond describable. Now you can have computer programs that can do multitasks; for instance, a software that possesses a full set of relevant characteristics for a specific need. It is literally getting the whole package in a small package.

Let’s talk about one good example of this.

DEPRO, a software developed by PVI, is a complete torque, drag and hydraulics program that combines all the essential components of our TADPRO and HYDPRO software.

For torque and drag, this software eliminates and diminishes a lot of the risks in drilling, completion or any particular tool operations. It also performs comprehensive hydraulics calculations so that the downhole drilling hydraulic conditions can be examined, and potential problems can be identified in advance before field execution.

Among its many features DEPRO also includes:

Soft and stiff string models
Buckling criteria
Drilling, back reaming, rotating and tripping operations
Minimum WOB to buckle
Stress calculations
2D/3D animations
Liner cementing job
Field data comparisons on torque, drag, ECD and SPP
Fixed flow rate analysis
Surge and swab
Hydraulics sensitivity analysis

This is a good package for service companies and operators in which they can find everything that they need for their jobs to be done all in one place. In other words they can have the whole package in a small package.

Pegasus Vertex, Inc. – Blog

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