Oil & Gas: Drilling Operations

Standardizing Rig Move Execution Across a Fleet

A land drilling contractor executing rig moves across multiple basins.

We standardized how the contractor plans, briefs and debriefs rig moves, and average move downtime fell by roughly 30 percent.

~30%

Lower average rig move downtime, against the fleet's own prior baseline

Situation

Non-productive time (NPT) is the measure drilling contractors and operators use for rig-move efficiency. Under day-rate contracts, idle rig time is lost revenue for the contractor and lost schedule for the operator. Rig moves carry more NPT risk than any other activity because they pack the most logistical and safety complexity into the shortest window.

This contractor's fleet had spread across several basins without a common rig-move model. Regional managers had each developed workarounds. Debriefs, where they happened, rarely changed how the next move was planned, so the same avoidable delays kept returning.

What we did

Our Efficient Rig Move (ERM) Program treats a move as one system with four stages. We watched a representative sample of moves in the field and used every one of them in the diagnostic. Structured interviews ran from toolpushers up to regional operations managers. That let us separate fleet-wide process gaps from problems specific to one crew.

Stage	NPT driver we found	Fix
Plan	Planning started too close to the move date	A planning lead-time trigger that applies to every crew and basin
Brief	Content and depth varied by supervisor	One briefing format across the fleet
Execute	Plan changes introduced mid-move	A change-control checkpoint requiring sign-off before a change is carried out
Debrief	Lessons captured informally and seldom reused	A debrief protocol that feeds the next move's plan

Impact

Average downtime per rig move dropped by about 30 percent. The comparison is with the fleet's own NPT record before the program, and most of the gain came from the planning and briefing stages.
Every move now ends with the same debrief, and its findings are an input to planning the following move.
Late plan changes became less frequent once the checkpoint was in place. They had been a major cause of schedule variance across the fleet.

What made it work

We diagnosed behavior as well as paperwork. Leadership conduct, process compliance and crew culture were assessed at each stage, so the fixes addressed why crews departed from the plan and not only where.

One standard, whoever runs the move

The briefing and debrief formats are identical for every crew and region. Performance no longer depends on who is assigned.

Results

Average rig move downtime down by approximately 30 percent

One debrief format, with lessons carried into the next move plan

Fewer last-minute plan changes, a major source of schedule variance

Engagement facts

Sector: Oil & Gas: Drilling Operations
Practice area: Transformation & Organization
Client profile: Land drilling contractor
Region: Multiple basins
Services: Efficient Rig Move (ERM) Program assessment and redesign
Key phases: Field diagnostic on sampled moves; fleet-wide standard

This case study is a composite drawn from multiple engagements. Client details have been changed and combined to protect confidentiality, and figures are representative rather than attributable to any single client.