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PAST Events

2011 i-SixSigma Energy Forum for Process Excellence

VRI will be attending and sponsoring the i-SixSigma Energy Forum for Process Excellence being held in Houston, Texas on May 16 – 19, 2011.

The Energy Forum is a comprehensive educational forum for energy industry leaders to learn best practices in all areas of process excellence, from starting a program to revitalizing an effort, and increasing production to improving safety.

i-SixSigma Energy Forum for Process Excellence

VRI will be attending and sponsoring the i-SixSigma Energy Forum for Process Excellence being held in Houston, Texas on May 24 – 27, 2010. 

The Energy Forum is a comprehensive educational forum for energy industry leaders to learn best practices in all areas of process excellence, from starting a program to revitalizing an effort, and increasing production to improving safety.

Next Generation Oil & Gas APAC Summit, March 2010 - Singapore

VRI’s President, Sally Ulman, and Managing Director, Melanie Zamora, attended The Next Generation Oil & Gas APAC Summit held in Singapore at the Amara Sanctuary Resort Sentosa on March 9 – 11th.   This venue serves as an arena for senior level executives to engage in clear and focused dialogue with their peers and examine their management objectives in a relaxed and vibrant environment.  This summit gives an opportunity for VRI to explore additional business opportunities in Asia Pacific to increase our company’s capabilities and further build our sustainable competitive advantage.

Asia provides a fantastic opportunity for new and exciting business relationships.  The real value of the summit is definitely networking with likeminded individuals who share the same passion and enthusiasm about the pressing issues affecting the industry.  The summit consisted of structured and informal networking sessions that were planned throughout the event.

At this three day event VRI came in contact with many major companies working in SE Asia.  These relationships formed will further our growth in the region and expand our partnerships.  We will be supported via our newly opened office in Jakarta with area specific individual trainers and other Lean Six Sigma service providers in the region.    These regional resources will serve clients throughout Asia in offering our services with locals at less cost in both labor and travel.   

Sally Ulman, President of VRI, served as the opening speaker in which she described “What is Lean Six Sigma?” and gave several common examples of wastes in everyday life.  She kept the group engaged with her flare for describing how Oil & Gas Industries can benefit from utilizing this methodology for improving their processes and ultimately increasing revenue to shareholders.  She explained how VRI works with clients to identify waste in key processes and apply the “Simplify and Perfect” approach.

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VRI Summit Meeting, January, 2010 – Houston, Texas

Variance Reduction International, Inc. (VRI) hosted a three day Summit Meeting on January 27th through the 29th, 2010 in Houston, Texas. A diverse but highly skilled group of 13 Lean and Master Black Belt certified Consultants participated in the 3 day conference along with 3 guest speakers representing Chevron, Continuous Learning Group (CLG), and JMP.  The Summit was held at our Business Partner, Sirius Solutions near the Galleria in Houston, Texas.

The VRI Summit, held annually, brings together all sub-contracted consultants, who work all over the world.  Since VRI has experienced growth over the past few years, this summit also gives new consultants a chance to interact with other consultants with similar experiences. 

The Summit began on Wednesday with an expert guided tour of The Wiess Energy Hall of Petroleum Science and Technology in the Museum of Natural Science. This was offered to individuals who wanted to learn more about the oil and gas industry.  This exhibit and expert tour guide offered in-depth review of the cutting-edge technology of the oil and gas industry explained many of the nuances of today’s drilling techniques. 

In the afternoon on Wednesday, Jami Hampton, JMP Systems Engineer from SAS Institute, Inc. delivered a session of the latest tips and tricks of the most current version 8.0 of JMP.   This session provided users time-saving shortcuts, such as eliminating key strokes to changing the way your output is displayed.  Attendees learned how to save time and money through simple tricks and tips.  This session also offered an exchange of uses for the software that many of the consultants had utilized over the past year with many our clients.

On Wednesday evening, the group socialized at a favorite restaurant in Uptown Park, McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant.  The food and company was excellent!

The Meeting agenda for both Thursday and Friday covered many areas.  We started with a year in review with a detailed look-back and customer feedback; this gave all in attendance a chance to review this past year as an aggregate and help formulate a better understanding of 2010 and beyond.  Sally Ulman, President of VRI, looks at many ways to adapt to an ever changing business climate and listens to our customers in order to better provide what our clients are requesting.  During this summit there were many discussions on how to do things better such as streamlining our own processes, simplifying forms, automating workflows, and sharing successes along with lessons learned.  The topics covered our new invoicing procedures, contracts, travel guidelines, insurance requirements and visa management.  We reviewed our synergy with Sirius Solutions and discussed our future of building business and expanding our presence in many areas of the world. 

This year several guest speakers were invited to attend the Summit.  These speakers were selected among many business partners and clients we have all over the world.   Steve Turnipseed, Lean Sigma Advisor, with Chevron North America Exploration and Production, presented Chevron’s Lean Sigma Program Direction for 2010.  He reviewed the status, governance, expectations of our Consultants, and the current infrastructure for the overall LSS Program at Chevron.   Ann Marie Michaud, Partner with Continuous Learning Group, CLG, gave a riveting interactive presentation on the ©DCOM Model, an effective and proven model for developing and sustaining a true high-performance organization.

VRI strives to keep training material fresh with yearly updates available at the beginning of each year, and the Summit was a chance to share with all consultants the latest training material. The updating of material generally comes from three sources: feedback and special requests from course participants, i.e. more industry specific examples; trainers who realize through conducting a course that a particular portion of the course could be explained in a better way; and benchmarking from the Lean and Six Sigma industry.

On Thursday night the group went to a local favorite restaurant in heart of the Montrose area, called Sorrento Ristorante, The restaurant offers impeccable service and most importantly excellent Italian food.  The night started off with Ron Berdine a VRI Senior Consultant, offering a few words of wisdom and a toast to our President, Sally Ulman and words of appreciation from Larry Murray, another one of our Senior Consultants.

The VRI Summit meeting was a very productive endeavor and well received by attendees and guests.  Many topics were covered in just three short days, and the opportunity to meet with colleagues face to face helped to improve working relationships within VRI.

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SPE Annual Technical Conference, October 2009

VRI, Variance Reduction International, Inc. sponsored an exhibit at the Society of Petroleum Engineers Annual Technical Conference.  This year’s conference was held  in New Orleans, Louisiana at the Morial New Orleans Convention Center from October 4 – 7th, 2009. 

Representing VRI was Sally Ulman, President, Larry Murray, Sr. Consultant, Melanie Zamora, Managing Director, and Nellie Cavazos, Office Manager.   A Welcome reception opened the exhibition hall on Sunday, October 4th, with the latest technologies and products on the market.  The reception gave the chance for VRI to network with Students, Faculty, and other leading E&P professionals.

Next two and half days, the hall was filled with SPE professionals, faculty, students, award recipients, and others who’s curiosity was peaked as they passed by our exhibit. They witnessed others and tested their owns skills in which a catapult was set up to attempt to hit a bulls-eye. As witnessed in the photo to the left, students tried their luck in attempts to understand the difference in the 2 catapults that were tested.

The example demonstrated the variance in a non-controlled process by which one catapult was setup with no constraints and the other was setup with a controlled process to repeatedly hit the target.  This scenario demonstrated services we provide to train and mentor companies in establishing their own process improvement methodologies.

We ended the session with many educated professionals and students armed with a better understanding of what is Lean Six Sigma and how it can apply to each of them.  We discussed with many of them how VRI works with clients to identify waste in key processes and apply the “Simplify & Perfect” approach. Simply put, Lean simplifies the process where Six Sigma perfects the process.

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