Standards: what's in it for me?

m The upstream oil and gas industry (exploration and production, or E&P) is positioning itself for long-term success by elevating the intellectual pursuits of its workforce. This elevation entails a shift in focus from data and information to knowledge and wisdom (Figure One). The new vision of success is being realized through the combination of three elements: integrated business processes, teams of knowledge workers, and the tools to support both. & P business processes are now viewed in the context of the overall life-cycle of the asset (that is, the oil and gas field) (Figure Two). Professionals are no longer organized into functional silos, but rather into collaborative teams of specialists (Figure Three), and they require new types of tools to realize their targets. Standards and standard practices are essential to those tools. Petrotechnical Open Software Corporation (POSC) was incorporated in 1990 to meet the demand for industry-specific standards to support the tool implementations.