When big data is too small

Operators occasionally announce, with great fanfare, plans to embrace oilfield automation by creating a new system completely in-house. The idea is touted as building a better mousetrap, but it may be more accurately dubbed reinventing the wheel. Automation’s main purpose is to increase efficiencies, so if everyone creates their own automation system instead of using one of many that are already in place, a significant amount of those efficiencies are lost.