How long have you been using MultiSeis?
I remember back in 1999 working alongside Dave Boulton on the Geo Bluefin, when he was writing the first version of the MultiSeis classic! I used it for the first time in early 2001, but the software has evolved nicely over the years. Later on, when I became the Operations Manager at Seabird Exploration I was involved in their adoption of Multiseis. Since joining Magseis Faifield, I worked with Jonathon Cudmore, our operations Manager, to set up our company timing and production categories that we wanted when we adopted MultiSeis. Then in recent years I have been using MultiSeis as the Party Manager on PRM Source and OBN projects.
How have you used MultiSeis on a recent project?
We’ve actually just finished a multi-vessel project in Angola. There were 2 source vessels, a node vessel and a support vessel. I was on the node vessel, acting as the fleet coordinator and responsible for daily reporting. This was the first time I had used MultiSeis’ full blown multi-vessel capability, and I was impressed how well it all worked. The 2 source vessels were also running Project Manager, and they would log their timing and production and other events each day. Here on the node vessel, we had technicians operating dual ROVs and they would log all node deployment and recovery. For the support vessel, we didn’t have any Project Manager users on-board, but we were still able to log basic information like bunkering and fuel usage into the project for them. As all the data is synchronised, I could then really easily generate a combined daily report for all 4 vessels. In the past this kind of project would have required an additional couple of steps, where we would email reports to the fleet coordinator, and these would have to be manually combined into a single report. It’s a lot easier now!
How does MultiSeis compare to other systems you have used?
I have mostly used MultiSeis, but I have seen other systems over the years. MultiSeis is quite a strict system in comparison to others, which allow more flexibility to the vessel user to define custom categories. With MultiSeis, new categories have to be approved by the admin, and then maybe new report blocks made, which can take a little time, but I know it’s a good thing to constrain the categories, and keep these the same for the next people that are using the software. I do find the report templates a very good feature. Often clients come with different requirements of how they want the data displayed or filtered, and with your templates there is such a great selection of report blocks, and flexible options, I’ve never been in a situation where I couldn’t add the data in the way they wanted to the report.
