Within this section we will have a look at the core technology of offshore access providing firms. Most companies in the industry focus on the development, construction and lease of high-tech offshore access solutions. Popular methods of transporting personnel offshore are: The helicopter, the Windcat workboat and also the offshore access system, also known as the heave compensated gangway.

The Offshore Access System

The offshore access system is a self-stabilizing platform that provides access from a moving vessel to some stable platform on the ocean. Six hydraulic legs prevent any movement of the vessel brought on by waves, which makes the merchandise very safe and stable when compared with other offshore solutions provided by competitors who use the helicopter to transfer personnel on sea. The bridge can be installed on location within eight hours and operated by a single person. The core technology utilized by the business may be the manufacturing process.

Classified in Woodward’s technical complexity scale, the manufacturing procedure for the organizations falls mostly into Group I. Because most providers of the offshore access system are young and emerging companies, which sell an innovative product, the organizations produce single units and small batches to customer orders. The organizations are characterized by a higher amount of involvement through the employees for most of its operations.

Yet, the businesses haven't reached happens of mass production; therefore every worker currently takes a complete understanding of the technology getting used. The technical complexity, that is based on the quality of the mechanization of the production process, thus remains between medium and low, as the companies use a standardized production process on one hand, but didn't enter the stage of mass production on the other hand. Since the organizations are facing rapid growth, it could fall into Woodward’s Group II soon. Group II manufacturers are characterized by large batches and mass production.
As a consequent from the rapid growth, the businesses might highly routinize the manufacturing process and increase the production capacity soon. This can result in a more focused understanding on specific areas of the manufacturing process through the workers, a heightened division of labor and similarly a higher amount of mechanization.

We have chosen Woodward’s model to describe the length of the primary process, because she focused particularly on manufacturing firms such as the offshore access providers for her studies. Moreover, we think that her typology currently characterizes we've got the technology utilized by the business best.

Like a final and important distinct factor, assessing the firms’ resource dependency can provide managers with valuable insights when defining the organizational environment. Essentially, the tool that allows this assessment is analyzing resources along criticality and scarcity.

offshore safety

One of the essential resources of offshore access providers may be the product specific knowledge that is gained in close cooperation using the universities. Without continuous improvement of the knowledge the companies would lose their competitive advantage of probably the most reliable product (the offshore access system) in the industry. Moreover, knowledge is available in the form of new employees who're constantly hired in order for the firms to keep up with the substantial growth.

This will make trained and qualified labor another highly critical resource. Both knowledge and skilled labor are closely connected and both are assigned as particularly scarce and difficult to substitute due to the product specificities. Furthermore, developing the offshore access system requires an extensive energy production, which induces the necessity of acquiring sufficient capital. Thus, making capital investors another essential resource.

However, the greater systems a business in this industry has being used, the greater capital can be provided without the need for external financing making substitution easier. Therefore, criticality is recognized as high but scarcity rather moderate. Closely from the growth and development of their systems may be the input of recycleables. These take the type of customized parts for the offshore access industry and there are lots of different companies that all provide only a limited quantity of the appropriate components. Consequently, reliable supplier parts are crucial, scarce and difficult to substitute. Eventually, offshore access systems need to get to the customer in order to realize turnover and potential profits resulting in the obvious criticality of consumers.

offshore transport

Although, customers also provide special inputs in the form of safety requirements and cheap offshore access solutions. When it comes to scarcity clients seem to continuously demand offshore services, however, most providers of the offshore access system are still unknown to some major part of consumers within the offshore oil & gas industry. Subsequently, the shows customers by the bucket load allowing for substitution, more to the point though, is that these providers of offshore access systems have to improve their brand awareness amongst these potential customers.

As a conclusion, as much details about the environment should be a accessed as possible through boundary spanning, but a right balance needs to be found between buffering these resources and also the continuous refreshment of knowledge and techniques utilized in the business.