The interaction that takes place between different stakeholders of a virtual enterprise who represent active nodes of a complex high-secure industrial network.
Published in Chapter:
Collaborative Networks and Virtual Support Enterprises
Jayantha P. Liyanage (University of Stavanger, Norway) and Mike Herbert (Onshore Drilling Center, Norway)
Copyright: © 2008
|Pages: 7
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-885-7.ch032
Abstract
Owing to complexity and dynamism of the industrial settings, the business environment today is more prepared to adapt different competitive strategies to retain profitability and growth (see for instance, Click & Duening, 2005; Tidd, 2000; Wang, Heng, & Chau, 2007). Smart use of cooperative technologies and establishment of prudent business-to-business (B2B) partnerships are very central to manage risk when business activities are exposed to a much wider range of uncertainties (Shaw, 2006; Wang et al., 2007; Wroblewski, 2002). This is particularly so for high-risk businesses such as oil and gas (O&G) exploration and production (E&P), which is far more sensitive in socio-economical and political terms. This chapter presents such an emerging collaborative and dynamic network environment within the O&G industry on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) through a case study. It provides a background of the industry, describes the organization of the network, its structure, and the active strategic components. At the end it also highlights some of the major challenges that need to be addressed in the establishment of a fullyintegrated and fail-safe network and an operational enterprise to manage complex assets. This is based on an ongoing industry-wide new development process termed integrated operations (IO) commenced very recently in 2004-2005 dedicated to establish smart offshore asset management practices on NCS by 2015 or so (OLF, 2003).