Success for one of our Lunch & Learn delegates!
February 2017
As part of this year’s launch, we ran a Lunch & Learn session in conjunction with Innovator award sponsor, OGIC.
Representing energy companies of all shapes and sizes, the attendees learned more about the awards, listened to past winners discuss their highlights, heard about the benefits of being both shortlisted and winning and, most importantly, how to tackle the entry process.
One attendee at the Lunch & Learn, Jim Cargill, CEO of PlanSea, is reaping the rewards of attending. The session encouraged him to enter the awards and, in January, his company was announced as a finalist for the prestigious Emerging Technology accolade.
PlanSea’s technology is a groundbreaking optimisation and efficiency software solution for offshore marine support operations, which was developed in partnership with Robert Gordon University. The software uses advanced algorithms to optimise vessel utilisation, and in turn earn cost and resource efficiencies, whilst meeting all operations objectives and addressing the constraints that make offshore logistics a hugely complex task. The software has already been piloted with Nexen to realise efficiencies and resulted in a huge saving of £6.5million.
We spoke to Jim about his experience at the Lunch & Learn, and why he decided to enter the awards:
“As a technology start-up, PlanSea has held supportive discussions with OGIC for many months and through our relationship with the team there, I was invited to attend the Lunch & Learn to find out more about the awards and if they could be relevant to us.
“Whilst Initially unsure about whether the awards were right for us, I found the lunch at OGIC’s office was really helpful. We’d had some recent press coverage, highlighting how our software had generated £6.5million of savings for Nexen, so I knew we had a good business case for taking that to the awards.
“It was particularly useful to hear from some of the previous winners at the sessions (Well-SENSE and Tendeka) about what winning had meant to their businesses and the benefits it had brought.
“After hearing about how to actually craft the award entry, I felt that PlanSea should make the effort and so we decided to enter - if nothing else it would be a useful learning experience!
“The whole PlanSea team was absolutely delighted to be announced as part of the shortlist in January – it’s such a significant boost for a small company like PlanSea. I’d often thought that as an SPE organised event, the technology categories would focus on ‘widgets’, so it’s great to see that all types of developments are considered for this category, including our software solution.
“To get this far is already a huge success story for us, and has been a real boost for PlanSea’s profile. We can’t wait for the ceremony in March, where we’ll be awaiting the winner reveal with bated breath. It’s essential that companies continue to share their industry success stories, particularly in the current environment. This includes small companies who are focusing on creating the technology advances required within the energy industry, and it’s fantastic that SPE recognises the efforts of PlanSea as well as the other category finalists.”
A limited number of tables is available for the Offshore Achievement Awards. The black tie ceremony takes place on the 23rd of March at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre. Book your place now to avoid disappointment.
