INDUSTRY

HOUSTON, TX -- Schlumberger Oil & Gas Information Solutions (SIS) announced today the signing of a joint marketing agreement with the American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC). This alliance establishes the oil and gas industry's first complete knowledge management (KM) solution, giving oil companies the tools and processes to link people to information, expertise and best practices through communities of practice, technology and ongoing training and support. As part of the agreement, SIS has licensed APQC's knowledge management methodology: "APQC's Road Map to Knowledge Management Results: Stages of Implementation(TM)." The combination of SIS industry expertise and technology with APQC's methodology will enable the partners to offer customers strategic and tactical KM tools and assistance. "Customers need three things from a KM solution provider: a thorough understanding of their industry; a solid analysis and project implementation methodology; and the right technology to bring it all together," said Carla O'Dell, president of APQC. "We've chosen to partner with Schlumberger because our respective areas of expertise complement each other and enable us to offer a new level of service to our customers." A complete range of KM products and services is being made available, from initial exploration and production (E&P) workflow and knowledge gap analysis; through technology infrastructure and content management needs; to a set of learning and support services. Additionally, a suite of KM software applications can be accessed through the DecisionPoint(a) Web-based information management solution or independently. Reid Smith, vice president of Knowledge Management for SIS, said, "Schlumberger has more than 80,000 employees around the globe, supported in their operations by the world's most extensive private intranet. As a result, we've developed a number of advanced KM processes and technologies in-house, and APQC has been part of our internal efforts. What's more, APQC has trained some 150 Schlumberger employees in their world-class KM methodology. Now we'll be able to offer our customers an integrated solution to help them meet their goals." Both organizations have extensive experience in the oil and gas industry, and many SIS customers are also members of APQC. For example, Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) participated in a recent APQC benchmarking project, "Building and Sustaining Communities of Practice." SIS worked with PDVSA, starting in 1999, to build Project Net, the organization's collaborative workplace system. The SIS alliance with APQC will foster this kind of a natural synergy globally. APQC defines knowledge management as systematic approaches to help information and knowledge emerge and flow to the right people at the right time so they can act more efficiently and effectively. Better use of knowledge enables organizations to increase productivity, reduce cycle time, hasten learning, make better and faster decisions, enhance the ability to scale up, energize innovation and improve motivation. In addition to bringing this KM offering to the oil and gas industry, SIS and APQC will leverage the strength of SchlumbergerSema to provide information technology (IT) consulting, systems integration, managed services, products and IP network security solutions to the oil and gas, telecommunications, utility, finance, transport and public sector markets. These services will support the implementation of APQC and SIS joint offerings and will give the alliance the global reach of thousands of technical, process, scientific and organizational experts on all continents. For more information visit www.slb.com or www.apqc.org