Taking Pump by Exception to the Next Level
A practical playbook for evolving exception-based operations into prioritized, economically ranked daily plans.
Pump by exception was the right idea with a ceiling: queues that outrun attention, a 5 BOPD stripper alarming like a 200 BOPD producer, thresholds drifting off declining wells. This paper is the operator-level playbook for the next level. Three moves, in order: prioritize the exceptions, score them in dollars, and turn the scored queue into a ranked daily plan, plus the operating-model changes that make the moves stick. Light on math by design: the formal treatment is Volume I, Pump by Priority. This is the field manual.
What is inside
- Why mature pump-by-exception deployments hit a ceiling: alarm overload, equal-looking exceptions, threshold drift, no economic context, no learning.
- Move one: prioritized exceptions. Alarm rationalization, per-well bands that follow decline, persistence rules.
- Move two: economic scoring of alarms. The one formula the field needs, severity tiers, and the defensible no-visit decision.
- Move three: the ranked daily plan. Constraints, overrides as data, and mid-shift re-ranking.
- The operating-model change: how the morning meeting inverts, how the foreman role moves up a level, and the KPI swap.
- A 90-day implementation path gated on evidence, not on the calendar.
- The bridge to Pump by Priority: what the closed loop adds, and why the learning gap compounds.
- Cross-referenced throughout to the formal Volume I research paper.
Where the playbook leads
The destination numbers, measured at the full Pump by Priority reference deployment: a top-25 private producer across three basins (Western Anadarko, Permian, and Wyoming), 5,000+ wells, same crews, against pre-deployment baselines.
Outcomes are specific to that deployment and calibration. New basins, equipment classes, or operating philosophies require a calibration period before results match these benchmarks.
Keep your exception system. Add the layers it is missing.
The playbook is the how. WellOPS is the system that runs it: the scored, constraint-aware, ranked plan in every truck cab by 6 AM, on top of the SCADA and rules you already own.