Ignition-To-Ignition Upgrade Modernizes Oil & Gas Company’s Enterprise System For Peak Performance

Project Overview

EXCO Resources is a leading independent oil & gas company that engages in exploration, acquisition, development, and production of onshore U.S. oil & gas properties. Initially EXCO maintained a templated legacy Ignition 7.9 SCADA system with support from TIGA. After the internal EXCO SCADA team was dissolved, TIGA transitioned into a developmental support role, providing assistance, and guidance to fill the gap. During this time, it became apparent that EXCO was not utilizing Ignition to its maximum potential. Recognizing EXCO as a progressive, forward-thinking organization, TIGA upgraded EXCO’s system from Ignition 7.9 with Vision to Ignition 8.1 with Perspective as the primary production HMI. This upgrade allowed for significant advancements, enabling EXCO to expand beyond the typical confines of a standard SCADA system. TIGA undertook the challenge of developing a dynamic, customizable system that could operate on a global scale and ensure future-proof scalability for EXCO. 

Challenges

While the 7.9 Ignition system fully supported a “SCADA in a box” concept, the personalized out-of-the-box solutions EXCO was exploring required an update. TIGA needed to revitalize the platform by upgrading the system while simultaneously developing new tools and features that would support the personalized SCADA experience for three separate operating units through global core data unification.

While assessing EXCO’s structures and data schema, TIGA administrators faced the unique challenge of supporting a tightly integrated system that relied on the HMI for creating structures. This required EXCO users to maintain the integrity and functionality of the existing system while adapting to changes and improvements. The system administrators had to ensure that the system remained reliable and efficient, despite evolving requirements and usage patterns. Balancing the need for stability with the demand for innovation presented an exceptional challenge.

The system had grown to a point where it contained unused windows and features developed for specific individuals who no longer used the system. This resulted in bloating and increased loading times, as all window and Vision assets loaded every time the system launched. EXCO had developed windows and placed them within the system without notification, leading to duplication of efforts. Similarly, EXCO had created metadata tables to house specific entries that once drove certain aspects of the system. However, these tables were no longer being updated, and the system didn’t rely on them anymore. As a result, updates became a manual process, with EXCO directly adding new entries to screens rather than managing them through the metadata pipeline.

TIGA needed to design a forward-thinking solution that would revolutionize EXCO’s in-the-box templated system and enable unparalleled flexibility, custom properties, and efficiency as well as maintain existing key features. The solution would need to empower users to create unique and dynamic dashboards while maintaining simplicity and ease of use. This would require TIGA to challenge conventional boundaries and deliver a system that adapts to diverse needs, streamlines workflows, and fosters a collaborative workspace.

Solution

To tackle these challenges, TIGA opted to completely overhaul the previous system and upgrade to Ignition 8.1, taking a customer-driven approach to development. This meant engaging with EXCO stakeholders from every operating unit and position to identify essential functionalities and expectations. By incorporating user feedback into the development process, TIGA ensured that solutions were tailored to meet the specific needs and preferences of the user base.

TIGA’s solution to devising this out-of-the-box, user-centric system was to first restructure the UDTs and tags to create a more unified and user-friendly system. This meant streamlining the organization and standardizing the naming conventions, with the aim of simplifying data management and enhancing system usability. The restructuring enabled easier navigation, reduced errors, and improved overall efficiency in accessing and utilizing data across the platform.

Using actionable data to drive dynamic navigation and HMI functionality was the key to reducing the time required for implementing new equipment and streamlining maintenance processes. By establishing a centralized source of truth for metadata, such as well names, meter IDs, and interfacing IDs, TIGA administrators could ensure consistency and accuracy across all EXCO operational aspects.

With a unified system, changes made by operations are reflected accurately across all teams, including business analytics, operations, and field technicians ensuring everyone is working with the most up-to-date information.

With the reworked UDTs and tag structures, EXCO’s system delivers impactful information quickly, providing users with the relevant data they need. Since EXCO has diverse user groups, TIGA built the system to ensure that everyone could access and view relevant information without overwhelming the users with unnecessary data. Instead of presenting everything on a single grid and leaving users to navigate through it, TIGA tailored the system to individual preferences.

With this updated, organized and reformatted system, TIGA was able to improve and enhance all the capabilities of EXCO’s Ignition software. TIGA developed a platform that could unilaterally support all aspects of EXCO’s operating units and incorporate innovative new features.

TIGA simplified navigation, utilizing icons and system-wide filtering. Instead of navigating through lists of options, users select a screen and then filter to display relevant information. This approach streamlines the path to objectives and enhances precise data acquisition.

Platform-wide filtering enables each operating unit to view their respective data independently. Users can customize their preferences in the user settings to apply filter selections automatically when accessing the system. Additionally, wildcard filter options  integrated into the filter header provide extra custom filter choices. These custom filters complement existing options, ensuring specific filtering choices carry over between screens.

TIGA created a dashboard feature to allow users to build their own screen containing information they personally found relevant. Dashboards act as a personalized landing page where users can quickly assess critical information without needing to navigate to different screens to procure all their data.

Users can share their screens with one another and create permanent hubs of pertinent information. The dashboard system allows users to resize, move, remove, and add various widgets. The dashboard screen is not impacted by any filter selections made by the user. This ensures that users always have access to a consistent set of information regardless of adjustments or prior selections. Users have access to over 10 different widgets to build their personalized dashboard.

Customization ranges between default filtering options and custom column selections, giving users the ability to select their settings to simplify navigation and repeated processes. User selections are automatically applied into the filter and actively kept through sessions, resulting in a consistent experience each time.

At the forefront of supporting all these new features and solutions is the system’s investment in data management. By aligning data with tag structures and optimizing formatting, the system provides enhanced functionality like faster loading times and dynamic dashboards that improve data access and utilization throughout the system.

The core data reorganization approach is what allowed TIGA to scale its personalized platform past the desktop and into the hands of every EXCO system user. TIGA modernized the system to be mobile-responsive, ensuring reach across various devices while prioritizing in-hand personal features for a tailored user experience on the go.

Result

TIGA and EXCO reached their goal of creating a cohesive and intuitive environment that optimized the user experience and facilitated seamless data integration. TIGA integrated EXCO’s teams with the SCADA system so that even those outside of the SCADA team could input and use data throughout the entire organization.

Reimagining the system’s structure with contemporary data methodologies significantly reduced load times across screens. This surge in performance translated into enhanced productivity and usability.

TIGA was able to develop a system that replaced redundant and antique features. Intuitive icon-driven interfaces for navigation mark a paradigm shift in the user experience. Good UI/UX grants users a heightened sense of proficiency in system interactions. The system-wide filtering and refined navigation empowers users with tools to access relevant information without unnecessary layers of complexity.

The customization options ensure the system’s commitment to user empowerment, providing the ability to customize their experience to suit their role and expectations. Allowing users to curate personalized screens and default filtering options fosters a culture of autonomy and collaboration. These tools not only expedite information retrieval but encourage better information dissemination practices among users.

TIGA leveraged the latest technologies, design principles, and UX functionality through core data unification to expand the system’s reach across a diverse range of devices, ensuring accessibility and usability for all users wherever they are, while also prioritizing in-hand personal features to deliver a tailored and intuitive experience that resonates with individual preferences and behaviors on the move.

TIGA designed a system not only to improve day-to-day maintenance tasks, but also to handle metadata and tag structure updates throughout all operating units on a single platform rather than on a variety of different platforms and systems. The updated EXCO Ignition system is expansive across the entire company, not just limited to SCADA, touching every department within the company and making it a vital tool for operations, maintenance, management, and beyond.

Start Date: March 2023

Deploy Date: February 2024