Dissertation Proposal Form

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Project Management

The Globalization Challenge – The need for Upskilling in BPTT

BP is a global energy company that also operates in Trinidad and Tobago as BPTT (BP Trinidad and Tobago). In Trinidad and Tobago BPTT plays a significant role in producing energy resources for the country. One of the offshore oil and gas platforms BPTT owns and operates is Mahogany B.

On Mahogany B there is the fiscal meter system which requires monthly calibration, this activity is currently outsourced to 3rd party vendors, with the price of oil and gas on the decline there may be an opportunity to be more competitive in the energy sector by using the in-house technicians already on payroll to execute this task. 

The significant role of Mahogany B fiscal meter - Each month regulatory calibration is required for the fiscal meter at Mahogany B, to ensure the production is accurate this job is outsourced to a third-party vendor. With the low price of oil and gas, there are incentives to explore prospects for the organization to become more powerful and competitive within the energy sector and to accomplish the task effectively and efficiently.

Organizations and firms are adopting multiskilling as some of the benefits are:

It helps in creating a more stable, reliable, and adaptable employee base.

It helps in increasing the flexibility when it is required to schedule or temporarily fill gaps of employees who are on leave.

It provides benefit to the workforce as increasing their skill level progresses their career and gives job satisfaction

Multi-skilling could benefit BPTT as a person has different kinds of skills and abilities and could be used flexibly (Fondyga et al. 2016). Time-saving is one of the biggest advantages BPTT can experience from multiskilling their employees. Conducting various tasks in the field at once allows for the free capacity to deal with unplanned events and emergencies. Another advantage of multiskilling at BPTT is the cost savings. 

Multiskilling is a desire through which everyone can do a lot of work especially when a large amount of work is required within less time to produce the product effectively (Junco 2012). When it comes to BPTT the advantage of using multiskilling within the organization is the work of different departments or vendors can be readily executed, during nonworking times, breakdowns, emergencies, or when there is a need to do specific work at that time (Fondyga et al. 2016). Multiskilling makes the person flexible to work; for each single and large organization, multiskilling is a demand to work effectively (Buser and Peter, 2012). 

Aim

This research aims to identify a viable business case for conducting the fiscal meter calibration work in-house with BPTT’s maintenance technicians. 

Objectives

The economics of hiring the contractor service vs using their technicians is known and understood. 

The quality of the service provided by in-house technicians through insourcing is up to or exceeds the vendor quality and meets regulatory guidelines.

Technicians have been upskilled to competently execute their additional duties.

 To contemplate upon financial and efficiency gains that have been realized from upskilling.

Research Question

What are the economics for hiring the contractor service such as the cost of personnel and tools?

What quality of service should be provided by in-house technicians through insourcing to meet vendor quality and the requirements of the job?

What financial and efficiency gains have been realized from upskilling?

Literature review

Understanding The Single Skilled Worker 

Single skilled workers are those individuals who hold education or training in a particular field, their activity is not essentially complicated but commonly centers around conducting repeated tasks these skills are more likely to be changed and advantageous for different jobs (Carson, 2011). Based on how high the individuals’ education is they tend to be less satisfied with their jobs. (Petersen and Puliga, 2017)

Understanding The Multi-Skilled Worker

Multi-skilled workers have a range of additional skills which allows them to easily execute or partake in more than one work activity at a time. Multi-skilled workers are usually less satisfied with their salary in comparison to single-skilled workers. Multi-skilled workers do not receive significantly higher pay than single-skilled laborers – but multi-skilled workers feel they should (Miguélez and Moreno, 2013). Multi-skilled workers are more satisfied with their development potentials as compared to their single-skilled worker counterparts, the general conclusion is that multi-skilling meaningfully rises job approval for only half of the workforce (Carson, 2011).

The research of Carson (2011) quantified multi-skilling as a way for organizations to arrange jobs in such a way that helps in improving productivity, flexibility, and ice quality. Multiskilling can increase the worker’s satisfaction with the job, and it has a great influence on job features and the worker’s worth awareness (Petersen and Puliga, 2017). As per the worker’s viewpoint, multiskilling help in improving the significance of the task because a multi-skilled worker adds more worth to the employer as well as will advance the general skillsets of the worker, which often leads to higher salary and job variety (Miguélez and Moreno, 2013). 

It has been highlighted that multi-skilled and single-skilled employees get comparable fulfillment from the job. Incomparable manner, the study of Miguélez and Moreno (2013) indicated that the satisfaction level of single-skilled labor alongside multi-skilled labor cannot be identified in the workplace. 

Insourcing And Its Benefits For Upskilling The Workforce

There are many advantages and disadvantages of insourcing and outsourcing where some of the organizational benefits can be a competitive advantage in the industry and privacy of company information (Lam and Khare, 2016). A study conducted by Petersen and Puliga (2017) provided some employee benefits of insourcing, which are the capabilities of the workforce would be improved and there are overall efficiency gains in work execution. It also identified that existing employees were able to perform new tasks increasing their competence while boosting their capabilities to conduct multitasking.

A study conducted by Moe et al (2014) went on to identify a major disadvantage with outsourcing where it could have enlarged costs and complications in controlling the third-party vendor.

The risk associated with outsourcing the workforce

One of the main disadvantages of outsourcing is the company employees share information with the third-party employees who are providing the services for them (Lockamy III and McCormack 2010) and in the future, they may in turn share the company information with a competing business (Lam and Khare, 2016). When a business task is outsourced this can hurt the workforce skillset and the organization may have challenges of less-skilled workers in the future (Moe et al. 2014) and it may also result in corporate knowledge within the organization being lost over some time (Olson and Wu, 2011). Outsourcing affects the privacy, security, or confidentiality of the information and leaves breaches (Lam and Khare, 2016). The study by Carson (2011) indicated that outsourcing reduces ingenuity in the organization in the longer term. 

Research Methodology

Three major methodologies are utilized by multiple researchers, these are qualitative methods, quantitative methods, and mixed methods Mackey and Gass (2015). Statistical analysis is conducted on logical and objective findings which are used in the quantitative research method to justify the outcome of the research (Jonker and Pennink, 2010). The qualitative method stresses subjective measures for studying the situation that involves critical argumentation and the perceptive view of various researchers (Flick, 2015). The Quantitative research method will be used for this research as statistical analysis and logical justification is the best technique for data gathering for the upskilling of the BPTT employees.

Data collection and analysis

Primary and secondary data collection methods are tools available for the researcher to use (Dumay and Cai, 2015). The tools for collecting primary data are surveys, interviews, and observations (Mackey and Gass, 2015). The secondary data can be collected from internet sources such as magazines, books, articles, and journals (Jonker and Pennink, 2010). The current research will utilize both secondary and primary methods for collecting the data and proposes to employ statistical analysis such as regression and correlation analysis for analyzing the data. 

Sampling 

A survey sample of employees who are currently working with BPTT and their service providers would be conducted, would be conducted through a random sampling method where the target group would be selected randomly. A sample size of 30 is considered which would be collected from technicians, engineers, and managers working at BPTT. The focus group for the present study would be individuals with a good educational background, within the age group of 20 to 55 years, having a high income, and the Single Point Accountable (SPA) person for the delivery of the service. An effort will be made to gather sample information from the regulatory department (Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs) the likelihood is low due to the timeframe to have the research completed.

Reliability and validity

The data collected through the survey needs to be reliable to deduce precise results. To deal with reliability risk, multiple questions would be utilized in the questionnaire to collect the right information in the equivalent area this should portray consistent findings. Random sampling techniques would be employed the intent would be to avoid or minimize the possibility of biases in the data set collected through the survey method  (Blog, n.d.). 

Ethical consideration

Emphasis would be placed on the ethical elements involved in the data collection for the research, where the sample group would be given appropriate details of the research and their identity would not be revealed. Data collected for the research would be used for this program only, participants would reserve the right to rescind their responses during the conduct of the research (Blog, n.d.).

Information required

Cost for Contractor – Available from PSCM Department, via interview

Additional cost for flights – Available from the logistics department via interview

Time is taken to start activity (Booking contractor, scheduling a flight, flight time, etc.) Available from the work permit department and logistics 

Competency required to execute the task – available from maintenance manager, via interview.

Cost to train existing employees – Available from maintenance manager via interview

Interviews will be conducted with the Maintenance Execution Manager to understand if there are any areas in the service where he would like to see improvements and understand if this can be integrated into this proposal.

I believe the most valuable information would come from the persons currently executing the task as they would be able to provide information as to what challenges they encounter doing their task and any areas they see improvements, unfortunately, I believe if I were to engage the contractor technicians they may feel threatened about their job security and may be hesitant to provide information and I don’t want my dissertation to cause unease and hysteria.

Strategic International Business Management & Operations and Information Management

Research schedule/Timeline

Figure 1: Gantt Chart (Self-Made)

References

Buser, T. and Peter, N., 2012. Multitasking. Experimental Economics, 15(4), pp.641-655

Carson, D., 2011. Skilled Labour Migration Flows to Australia's Northern Territory 2001-2006: Beyond Periphery?. Australian Journal of Labour Economics, 14(1), p.15.

Dumay, J. and Cai, L., 2015. Using content analysis as a research methodology for investigating intellectual capital disclosure. Journal of Intellectual Capital.

Flick, U., 2015. Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide to doing a research project. Sage.

Fondyga, A., Roopa, I.V., Khan, Z., Johnson, T. and Rastogi, V., 2016, June. Cased Hole Saturation Logs and Production Benefits: Case Studies–Offshore Operator in Trinidad and Tobago. In SPE Trinidad and Tobago Section Energy Resources Conference. Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Jonker, J. and Pennink, B., 2010. The essence of research methodology: A concise guide for master's and Ph.D. students in management science. Springer Science & Business Media.

Junco, R., 2012. In-class multitasking and academic performance. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(6), pp.2236-2243.

Lam, H. and Khare, A., 2016. Addressing volatility, uncertainty, complexity & ambiguity (VUCA) through insourcing and back shoring. In Managing in a VUCA World (pp. 141-149). Springer, Cham.

Lockamy III, A., and McCormack, K., 2010. Analyzing risks in supply networks to facilitate outsourcing decisions. International Journal of Production Research, 48(2), pp.593-611.

Mackey, A. and Gass, S.M., 2015. Second language research: Methodology and design. Routledge.

Miguélez, E. and Moreno, R., 2013. Skilled labor mobility, networks and knowledge creation in regions: a panel data approach. The Annals of Regional Science, 51(1), pp.191-212.

Moe, N.B., Šmite, D., Hanssen, G.K. and Barney, H., 2014. From offshore outsourcing to insourcing and partnerships: four failed outsourcing attempts. Empirical Software Engineering, 19(5), pp.1225-1258.

Olson, D.L. and Wu, D., 2011. Risk management models for supply chain: a scenario analysis of outsourcing to China. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 16(6), pp.401-408.

Petersen, A.M. and Puliga, M., 2017. High-skilled labor mobility in Europe before and after the 2004 enlargement. Journal of the Royal society interface, 14(128), p.20170030.