FIRST BREAK VOL 11, NO I L NOVEMBER 1993/477
Quality improvement in the seismie process!
George Steef and Mike Wolë
This paper addresses the issue of quality improvement in
genera I terms and how HGS, in particular, is working
towards quality improvements which wil! benefit
company performance and customer satisfaction.
'Quality' is a word which is wel! known to geophy-
sicists and geologists. The search for ever-better quality
in seismie data has led to bath gradual and break-
through improvements in the seismie process and has
alsa led ta cast reductian; far example, to make 30
seismie exploration an effective taal.
Fig. 1. Production
Whot exactly do we mean by 'quality' and 'quality
improvement '?
The first part of th is paper wil! describe several points af
theory while the secend part will illustrate the theory by
the use of real, practical exarnples. Brief remarks wil! be
made on the increasingly popular International Standards.
Theory
Continuous quality improvement is based on a whole
theory af management which is mast closely assaciated
with Dr W. Edwards Deming. Dr Derning is generally
I Presented at the 54th EAEG Meeting, Paris.
"l+alliburton Geophysical Services, PO Box 36306, Houston, Texas
77236-6306, USA.
JR. Michae1 Wolf Associatcs, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
credited with the transformation of Japanese industry
after Warld War 11.
The key points ofthe Derning approach to continuous
quality improvement are:
• Constancy af purpose:
• Teamwork and cooperation;
• Leadership;
• System for improverneut.
His teachings focus on the long term and a constancy
viewed as a system
of purpose. He emphasizes the critical need for team-
work and cooperation between work groups and the need
for management to provide leaders hip and to constantly
imprave systems for better quality and lower cast.
Central to his philosophy is a systems approach to
any work. His model of the organization viewed as a
system is shown in Fig. I.
First, the purpose af the organization needs to be
established and communicated.
Secondly, the organization needs to be viewed as a
linkage or netwerk of interdependent processes, the aim af
which is the satisfaction, even the delight, of the customers.
Thirdly, the system needs to identify opportunities to
better match customers' needs.
The fourth activity is to plan for improvement.
The fifth activity is to manage individual and team
478/FIRST BREAK VOL 11, NO 1L NOVEMER 1993
Fig. 2. Planning for improvement
activities, in other words to carry out improvements,
with the aid of theory. The concept is extended to any
process or system, simple or complex.
Deming describes a "systern ofprofound knowledge".
Wouldn't we alllike to have such a system! He identifies
four key components:
• The understanding of a system and the importance of
optimizing the whole system rather than sub-
optimizing. The value of the whole is more than the
value of the pieces.
• A knowledge of statistical theory ",. and a deep
understanding of variation.
• A theory of knowiedge. Ta readers of First Break, the
idea of a theory of knowledge is probably not a
difficult one. Without theary there can be na learning.
• A knawledge of psychalagy.
The faurth and fifth activities referred to in Deming's
model refer to planning for improvement. He proposes a
Fig. 3. Marine training QIT -simplified
plan/do/check/act sequence as a learning and improve-
ment cycle as shown in Fig. 2. Contrast this structured
approach with what happens more frequently-a fire-
fighting approach; a little bit of planning, and much
frantic activity.
One of the camponents of Deming's profaund knawledge
was a deep understanding of variation. Deming says, "If
] had to reduce my message for management 10 just a few
words, I'd say it all had to do with reducing variation."
There are a number of simp Ie but aften pawerful toals
available 10 measure and understand variation and its
causes. These include Pareto charts and control charts.
Pareto charts illustrate in a simple way the few critica I
components of data contributing to a system of causes
or symptoms. Control charts show us patterns of
variation in processes and enable us to analyse and
react to varia ti on more appropriately. They may exhibit
'cornmon-cause' or slabie varia ti on or 'special cause' or
unstable variation. This concept ua I model for manage-
ment and leadership for continuous improvement must,
of course, be put into practice if it is to be useful.
Practical ex am pies
In marine data acquisition, a compclling issue is the
improvement of dient satisfaction through more
consistent and predictable processes. A worldwide
quality improvement team, or QIT as we call them,
was formed. This team carefully considered the mission
and purpose of their organization, described their
linkage of processes, and prioritized them for improve-
ment. As aresult, efforts were spawned in the processes
relating to training, maintenance, introduetion of new
equipment, the bidding of projects, and reducing
streamer failures.
Shawn here in Fig. 3 is a simplified version of the
linkage of processes diagram far the training QIT. The
linkage of processes diagram

Fig. 4. EAME marine acquisition---controllable downtime
1992
process chosen for initial concentration of effen was the
process of defining training. needs. Through collection and
analysis of data from their intemal and extemal customers,
they formulated theories about how positive change might
be created. The team has made a number of changes, the
Fig. 5. Causejeffect diagram-st
FIRST BREAK VOL IJ. NO IJ. NOVEMBER 1993/479
results and importance of which may take some time to
become apparent. The results of quality improvement
are not always known or seen irnmediatelyl Same of the
early outcomes and improvements from the training QIT
included: creatian of a ruil-time training coordinator;
publication of a catalogue of training courses; the publica-
tion of a new Quality Assurance Manual; and the develop-
ment of a feedback system for evaluation of courses. While
these may seem somewhat sirnple and obvious, there is
now a system in place which can be continuously improved.
The Pareto chart, shown in Fig. 4, is a simple but
effective tooi for displaying data. By organizing the data,
in this case percent downtime on the y-axis and the different
types of down time along the x-axis, we are abJe to corn-
municate c1early the greatest opport uni ties for improve-
ment, hopefully identifying the critical few symptoms
all vessels
or causes. In this case we can see that the biggest reason
for down time on our vessels was code 32, the code for
down time due to st rea mer failure. The first two reasons
together account for 40% plus of all downtime. This
leads us naturally to discussion af the work of another
of these QlTs.
The streamer reliability team was fonned in 1990, and
its mission is ta detennine the causes for failure of
rea mer team
480jFIRST BREAK VOL 11, NO 11, NOVEMBER 1993

Fig. 6. St reu mer reliability QIT Parcto Chart of factory repairs Fig. 7. Streamer reliability QIT -Pareto Chart of symptoms of failure

Fig. 8. Strearner reliability QIT-mean time befare failure Fig. 9. HGS land EAME acquisition 1991-Losl time accidents/
million man hours: control chan

Fig. 10. HGS Land EAME acquisition-Lost time accidenlsfmillion Fig. 11. Middle East crew-c-daily production rate
man hours: control chart

marine streamers and to prioritize improvements. A
clear definition of the mission of a team is an important
part of the improvement process,
In brainstorming the potential causes for failure, the
team made use of another tooi, the 'cause-and-effect" or
Ishakawa diagram, like the one pictured in Fig. 5. This
tooi, with causes shown on the arrows and the effects in
the boxes, is an essential part of the documentation of
current knowledge of a given phenomenon and its
possible causes.
Several improvemcnt cycles were initiated, using the
technique described earlier, the PDCA or plan-do-
check-act cycle. This is activity 5 of Deming's model.
One such cyele for example is summarized as follows:
• Planning how to collect the data;
• Collecting the data;
• Checking the symptoms with repairs;
• Acting on the information obtained.
Figures 6 and 7 are two Pareto charts; Fig. 6 shows
symptoms offailure (A through J) and Fig. 7 a Pareto of
causes of repair (K through Q) for the same st rea mer
sectien. These (WO Pareto charts were used to provide
easy identification of thc critical few causes or symptoms
of problems, though the data pointed out an interesting
anomaly. It became apparent that the symptoms of
failure on board the vessel (A through J) did not
correlate at all with the actual cause of failure as
dctermined by the factory (K through Q). This was a
very important finding which had considerable impact
on procedures onboard the vessels.
Time does not allowan in-depth discussion of the
positive results of the work of this team to date, though
it is possible to show by thc control chart shown in Fig.
8 that a significant improvement in mean time before
failure has been observed. Mean time before failure is
measured in days and is on the y-axis. Average time
befare failure was seen to improve from 90 days to 160
days. Upper and lower controllimits are computed from
the data points and are approximately 3.0 standard
deviations from the mean. However, there is still much
to do as the limits of variation are still toa wide apart
and we would like to see more improvement of the
mean. Thus the work of the streamer QIT continnes.
One aspect of almast any company's operations that
is rich in opportunity for improvement is the area of safety.
While our use of quality improvement models and
methods in the safety arena is still very much in its early
days, it has begun to change the way in which we look at
safety performance data and in the way we react to them.
Figure 9 shows the lost-time accident frequency on
the y-axis in each of the 11 countries in which we
operated in 1991. Clearly the number of accidents per
million man hours is different from one country to
another, and in the past we rnight have taken aetion by
special interrogation of those managers whose opera-
tions we re highest in accident frequency. But using the
FtRST BREAK VOL 11.NO 11. NOVEMBER1993481
control chart, which in th is case has varia bie lirnits, we
must draw the conclusion that none of these countries is
really different from the ethers, because na country is
outside the upper control limit. In other words, each of
these results came from the same family of causes. The
real work is in looking at the system of causes that is
common to all of these countries,
Sirnilarly, a control chart on historical accident
frequency since 1990 shown in Fig. 10 exhibits a stabie
systern. The variation about the mean is quite evenly
distributed, and no points fall outside the computed
limits. Previously, the datum for June 1991 would
almost certainly have resulted in instructions to the field
employees to explain their performance. Now we can see
that this datum is not different from the rest of the chart
and, most importantly, we now understand that only
management can change the system in which our
employees are operaring. Management is now concen-
trating on lowering the limits and the mean.
Con trol charts are now becoming a routine tooi of
management. Figure II shows the performance of a
Middle-East crew over a 4-month time period. The
y-axis is VPs (vibrator points) per day. Productivity was
varia bie and much lower than expected at the start of
the survey. After investigation and planning for
improvement, several changes we re made by manage-
ment, and a considerable change to the system was seen.
The average daily production increased from 130 VPs
per day to 298 per day. The special cause point at I May
was due to a swap-out of instrumentation.
It is important to note again that control limits are
computcd mathematically frorn the natural variation of
the data, relating to the standard deviation and the
range of successivc data points.
One of the important issues for seismie companies and
their clients today is the time taken to complete 3D surveys.
HGS is addressing the issue with several QIT teams.
A linkage of processes diagram shown in Fig. 12 helps
to picture the complex system which exists to process 3D
seismie data. This chart is actually a simplified version,
but at this point we can begin to establish a system to
identify opportunities to better match the needs of1our
clients. One of the ways we can do this, of course, is to
gather data to analyse some of the important outputs of
the present system, such as time to deliver displays/tapes.
Figures 13 and 14 show measurements of cyc1e time in
weeks. The control chart in Fig. 13, showing cycle time
from receipt of last field tape to production of the SEG
Y tapes, is an example of a system which is not sta bie,
and in fact exhibits considerable change over the period
1985 to 1992. In the early time period, 1985 to 1988,
almost all the points are below the mean. In the middle
period, 1988 to 1991, the data points show large
variation, mainly about the rnean. In the most recent
period, 1991 to 1992, the points are above the mean. So
this is certainly not a sta bie system, and thus not a
prcJictable onc.
482/FIRST BREAK VOL 11, NO 11, NOVEMBER 1993

Fig. 12. HGS EAME-marine 3D data processing: linkage of processes

The ehart in Fig. 14 showing the proeess from the
'navigation complete' to SEG Y is a very different chart,
and, except perhaps for the special eause data point in
the last quarter of 1989, is a sta bIe system. There are
important messages in these charts which give rise to
many questions about the underlying system of causes,
and whieh lead to the colleetion of ether data whieh may
help in understanding this eause systern. Achart which
shows a sta bIe system allows prediction that this pattern
of variation wilt continue into the future, unless the
system is changed in sorne way, which of course is the
job of management under the Deming philosophy.

Fig. 13. HGS EAME-marine 3D data processing: last field tape in Fig. 14. HGS EAME-marine 30 data processing: navigation
to SEGY complete to SEGY
 FIRST BREAK VOL 11, NO 11, NOVEMBER 1993/483

The implementation of quality standards, including the Deming method focuses on "improvement forever";
the international standard IS09000 amongst others, is on the need for astrong understanding of statistics and
also important. a strong element of leadership of people.
These standards are relatively well-known in manu- HGS considers that the two approaches can success-
facturing industries, but are only now coming into use fully complement each other in certain areas and will be
in the service industries. They are quite new to the seeking accreditation to IS09000 in each of its main
seismie business. product Iines.
The standards lay a foundation for a quality manage-
ment system. Under the standard, a company's quality Conclusions
system is defined and work procedures are outlined. The HGS and Halliburton company have committed to the
procedures can be as detailed or as simple as the company philosophy and teachings of Dr W. Edwards Deming.
chooses, as long as all the minimum requirements of the His teachings contain a balance of:
standard are met. For this reason, different companies
• A long term outlook with short-term improvements;
will have different quality systems. An accredited company
• Science with philosophy;
is committing to documenting a quality system which
• A reduction of waste while adding value.
satisfies the standard and to carry out the procedures it
has laid down within that system, no more, no less. His methods call for a deep understanding of variation and
How do standards and continuo us quality improve- strongly focus on satisfying, even delighting, the customer.
ment differ? Table I summarizes key components of the Quality improvement has no shortcuts. It is a never-
two approaches. ending journey full of obstacles. But we are confident
that along the way we will see more consistent processes,
Table 1. Standards and continuous qua/ity improvement
better products and services, lower costs, and more
Standards Deming Approach successful seismie and exploration industries.
1 Prevents nonconformity Improve forever
2 Convenient package, Pro vides understanding; Acknowledgements
instantly usa bIe never ending
The authors would Iike to express their appreciauon
3 Statistics as necessary Statistics essential
4 People not astrong Leadership of people
to Halliburton Geophysical for permission to give this
ingredient paper and most importantly, for the fundamental con-
tribution to quality improvement made by Dr Deming.
While the standards approach highlights conformanee
to a standard, and thus has a 'zero defects' approach, Received 30 January 1993; accepted 25 February 1993