Summary:

In 2014 oil prices plummeted by more than 40 pct. (Giles, 2016). The whole industry was
forced to restructure to meet the new reality of lower oil prices. Equinor, earlier Statoil,
launched the Statoil Technical Efficiency, here forth STEP, programme to meet the new
reality. With six sub-projects, the STEP programme aimed to cut cost by 30 pct. At large, the
STEP programme was one extensive standardisation and industrialisation programme.
(Aadland, 2015)
The STEP programme has only recently been completed. Great parts of Equinor are large
organisations, run with a long time horizon, where changes take time to unveil its full effect.
With this in mind, the study needed to pinpoint divisions of the company where changes were
likely to become evident at an early stage, and perhaps inflict greater or more visual impact.
Project divisions were found to be fitting to such a description.
This paper studies the organisational effect of the STEP programme in Equinor project
organisations. It does so by a series of semi-structured interviews with employees in three
different project organisations. The aim of the paper is to continue the literature-study by
Blindheim and Ryland (2015), and to evaluate the current effect of the STEP programme to
supply grounds for learning and possible corrections.
The study has sought to explore perceived differences in four categories; Efficiency, changed
workday, involvement and quality delivered.
The study found that the STEP programme has been effective in what is its main goal,
increased efficiency e.g. cut cost. However, the increased efficiency can hardly be ascribed to
different workday routines for the employees. It is rather the result of a changed focus in the
organisation, along with better cooperation with contractors, as well as some improvements in
the TR system and some reduced robustness and redundancy of chosen solutions. Equinor has
limited the involvement by employees some, and that has resulted in some STEP efforts not
reaching their full potential.