Baker Hughes Partner with TBGA to Deliver AM Training

Who

As an energy technology company that operates in more than 120 countries, Baker Hughes is at the forefront of adopting new technologies. The company works diligently to develop innovative solutions to complex energy challenges. To ensure that their teams have every tool needed to support a thriving environment of improvement, Baker Hughes invests in the professional development of its workforce by providing training programs that support product improvement and cost reduction initiatives. 

The Challenge

Bringing innovative training to a diverse workforce is a big undertaking. Baker Hughes employs approximately 66,000 workers. With such a diverse group working across several focus areas, including industrial, upstream, midstream, downstream, and digital, it is vitally important to balance innovation and performance with fiscal responsibility. 

To that end, Executive Director of Additive Manufacturing, Anjani Achanta, approached The Barnes Group Advisors (TBGA) to deliver Additive Manufacturing training to groups of engineers throughout the organization. The Baker Hughes team needed training – not hype. The goal of the initiative was to provide training that would assist engineers in recognizing cost savings opportunities. 

To do this, engineers in each product family must begin to design with AM in mind. Without that central shift in development, AM would never make business sense. However, with that simple shift, it is possible to design out significant cost drivers.

The Solution

TBGA quickly developed an approach for rolling out training across the organization. The educational sessions focus on bringing additive manufacturing to each product family in the ways that make the most sense for the business. 

Sessions are delivered to a wide variety of oil and gas exploration groups, from deep-sea extraction to fracking. Still, each training session provides the groups with the tools needed to recognize AM opportunities in their daily work. Relying on case studies, guided idea generation, and spirited team competition, TBGA training sessions cover years of experience in just a few short days.  

As one attendee noted, TBGA training sessions do "a really good job of compressing a lot of information over the 3-day course. The knowledge of the processes I have comes from two years of attending conferences, so if I'd done this right at the start – DONE – I would have enough information to start scouting out applications."

During the sessions, groups redesign a familiar part and then craft a value proposition for AM. This allows the teams to get hands-on experience with the products they already know. As a result, the teams have recognized low volume, high-cost products that could be moved from traditional manufacturing to AM to result in significant savings.

The Results

After an initial training class of nearly 100 engineers, Baker Hughes elected to partner with TBGA as an exclusive Global Additive Manufacturing Training Partner. As a result, TBGA will deliver online, onsite, and specialized training throughout the Baker Hughes organization.

This decision came on the heels of the last training class, where during the team based design activity, two products were redesigned with a value proposition in mind. After redesigning the parts for AM and completing the business case, the team realized that the new approach would save $3 million annually. 

As more training sessions are completed, both TBGA and Baker Hughes remain confident that further savings will be found and that the Baker Hughes teams are adding a significant skill to their toolbox.

Data Points

  • Selected as Baker Hughes Global Additive Manufacturing Training Partner

  • Uncovered savings of $3 million annually in one training class

  • Meeting the needs of a diverse team by delivering customized training

ArticlesAllie Kunkel