Digital Transformation of Systems Engineering at Oceaneering

Digital Transformation of Legacy Systems Engineering Processes for Automation & Control Systems

Project owner:	Oceaneering Mobile Robotics, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Project industry:	Automation & Control Systems
Project services:	Systems Engineering Process Development, Digital Transformation
Project completion:	2021
Project duration:	11 months

Disclaimer

The Experiences presented below were undertaken by the founders and partners of Waste2Value in their individual professional capacities, prior to the formation of the company. Waste2Value was not directly contracted or engaged to deliver these assignments. These Experiences are shared to illustrate the depth of in-house expertise we bring to our clients and to highlight the quality, rigour, and impact that underpin our approach to every engagement.

Case

Over the past two decades, businesses have been under increasing pressure to keep pace with the rapid evolution of technology and work methodologies. The exponential growth in computing power has driven innovation across every sector, enabling products and systems to be designed and developed with a level of complexity, interoperability, availability, and scalability previously unimaginable.

A simple example of this shift can be found in something as ordinary as the toothbrush. While a manual toothbrush twenty years ago may have had no more than three components, today’s state-of-the-art Oral-B electric toothbrushes can incorporate over 150 individual components—including advanced microelectronics, gyroscopic sensors, micro brushless motors, wireless Bluetooth modules, inductive charging systems alongside a connected ecosystem of cloud applications that store and analyze usage data from hundreds of millions of users worldwide.

For companies designing and manufacturing such complex products, the challenge is no longer just about product performance—it’s about maintaining mastery over their engineering processes. Over the past decade, this has meant adapting to cloud-based environments, deploying IoT devices at scale, and embracing the industrial transformation driven by AI. To stay competitive, development workflows must now integrate a growing array of technologies while remaining agile enough to match the accelerating pace of change in engineering tools and methods.

One such company navigating this transformation is Oceaneering International, Inc. (OII)—a global technology and engineering services provider headquartered in Houston, Texas, with operations in over 25 countries, serving the offshore energy, defense, aerospace, entertainment, logistics and manufacturing sectors. Their main focus, as it has been historically, is in the offshore oil and gas sector, where they design and manufacture deep sea maintenance equipment and services. Among these are Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs)—free-swimming submersible robots used to perform underwater observations, inspections, and maintenance on seafloor installations.

As part of their global expansion into new technology markets, Oceaneering’s Advanced Technologies Group (ADTech), a former subdivision of OII, pursued the acquisition of new capabilities. In December 2013, they finalized the acquisition of the Dutch developer and manufacturer of AGV solutions, FROG AGV Systems, based in Utrecht, The Netherlands. This acquisition enabled them to diversify their global presence in the logistics and material handling sector, adding a new subsidiary to their business portfolio which already included Oceaneering Entertainment Systems (OES), established in Orlando, Florida and specialized in the design, development and maintenance of automated robotics systems for entertainment park rides. The acquisition created a strategic opportunity to bundle businesses, technologies, and engineering capabilities—positioning them to benefit from economies of scale across multiple markets.

Oceaneering AGV Systems product line in 2016

Enhancing workplace satisfaction is recognizing that a satisfied workforce is the most direct path to satisfied customers. Something at the heart of Waste2Value Eco when leading transformation: Happy teams. Happy clients.

Oceaneering FREEDOM™ Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) with Liberty™ Resident System in background; a battery-operated solution that will go subsea with a surface buoy and work as a subsea station to power and support any work class vehicle, eliminating the requirement for a sea surface support vessel.

Objectives

The newly acquired AGV systems business posed a significant challenge for OII in aligning engineering and project execution processes with the company’s global standards. This stage of transformation is often a considerable undertaking—in terms of time, expertise, and cost—as it requires understanding the unique operational needs of the newly acquired engineering business while integrating Oceaneering’s own proven, enterprise-wide engineering methodology. The aim was to strike a balance between technical process standardization and preserving the conditions that allow advanced tech engineering in a much smaller and competitive market sector to thrive.

At least on paper this came down to the fact that OII wanted to retain its existing enterprise-level approach in delivering large-scale industrial projects—with a dedicated Systems Engineering (SE) team managing technical scope. However technical managers also understood that while industrial scale SE has great advantages, the newly acquired business had substantial different needs of its own in scale, technology, and market requirements. And that was something business managers had to account for when upscaling project execution and driving long-term revenue growth. Because as is the case in most smaller tech firms, senior engineers had matured into technical leadership roles in product development and project execution. Introducing SE to take over the primary technical lead role in these activities would represent a significant cultural shift for these senior discipline engineers.

After considerable back-and-forth discussions between technical and business managers, and with the arrival of a new CEO in the summer of 2019 who finalized the direction for digital transformation, program management set the following key objectives:

Modernize the structure of technical project execution by the SE team, shifting from a document-centric process to a model-based process.
Tailor a series of SE technical processes grouped into stages, allowing sufficient flexibility to ensure all projects could follow a common methodology while preserving project-specific peculiarities where necessary.
Identify the required inputs and outputs between the SE team and other teams, and standardize them through templates and structured formats to support lean execution.
Introduce digital tools that would enable the SE team to re-use design and engineering assets across multiple projects, increasing efficiency.
Establish a centralized digital repository for all SE project assets—including use cases, requirements, system diagrams for data, functions, and behavior, test definitions, and V&V plans—ensuring a single source of truth that is clear, complete, detailed, and accessible to all relevant teams.
Launch an intensive training program to equip the SE team with the capabilities to use digital tools starting from the bid phase all the way to project sign-off.

Collectively, these efforts aimed to increase productivity, foster collaboration, reduce rework, and ultimately enhance workplace satisfaction; recognizing that a satisfied workforce is the most direct path to satisfied customers. Something at the heart of Waste2Value Eco when leading transformation: Happy teams. Happy clients.

Oceaneering remote operators piloting & monitoring subsea missions from Onshore Remote Operations Centre (OROC) in Stavangar, Norway

As with all digital transformation efforts, success is not measured solely by the quality of new processes or tools, but by the organization’s determination to take on extra effort alongside daily operations in order to pivot in a new direction.

Solution

The decision by program management came down to structure the transformation program as a dual-lead initiative: one stream led by an operational excellence expert to drive change across organizational roles, responsibilities, and business, and a parallel stream led by a Systems Engineering (SE) expert focused on shaping end-to-end technical processes required for consistent, first-time-right project execution.

Recognizing that both cultural and technical adaptation were critical, the strategy was built around an incremental, feedback-driven rollout. The adoption of a pilot-first approach—a common best practice in organizational transformation—was to validate changes in a controlled environment before scaling, while building internal champions. Key stages included:

Selecting a mid-scale pilot project that offered technical complexity, manageable team size and value for business, ideal for validating the new methodology.
Assembling a balanced project team, considering both skill coverage and interpersonal dynamics, to increase engagement and reduce resistance.
Introducing essential SE technical processes tied to upcoming work packages, ensuring relevance from day one.
Closely monitoring outcomes, challenges, and team feedback through each phase to guide adaptive improvements.
Iteratively refining the processes for better alignment with real-world constraints while preserving methodological integrity.
Gradually layering in the new toolchain once initial process buy-in was secured, helping teams see added value without disruption.
Engaging the client in project team sprint reviews (show-and-tell sessions) to promote collaboration, emphasize the importance of well-defined use cases and requirements, and reinforce a shared spirit of partnership throughout project execution.
Scaling the refined practices by onboarding new teams and projects through hands-on mentoring and knowledge transfer.

This approach aligned with core principles of successful Systems Engineering transformation: structured approach, iterative rollout, stakeholder inclusion, and progressive scaling—while ensuring the client’s operational culture was respected at every step.

Demo video of Oceaneering Freedom™ AUV performing deep sea pipeline survey

Successful digital transformation projects rely on a clear understanding of expectations within the constraints of time, budget, and—most importantly—people. Introducing change means asking teams to work differently, which requires two empirical preconditions to make the shift sustainable: the change must be introduced gradually, and teams must be given the time to adapt. If we truly understand what the workforce experiences as an easier way of working, resistance becomes less of a concern. As with all digital transformation efforts, success is not measured solely by the quality of new processes or tools, but by the organization’s determination to take on extra effort alongside daily operations in order to pivot in a new direction. That’s why shared alignment of expectations—between business and engineering—is essential. When teams are asked to work differently, time and resources must be invested in learning and adapting. If the benefits aren’t felt by those doing the work, the change itself will quickly come into question.

Results

Successfully transitioned from document-based to model-based Systems Engineering across multiple projects, improving traceability, consistency, and reusability of engineering assets.
Established a structured, stage-based SE methodology adaptable to varying project types—balancing enterprise-level discipline with flexibility for smaller, fast-moving teams.
Significantly improved cross-team collaboration and alignment by formalizing interfaces, responsibilities, and deliverables through standardized formats and templates.
Introduced a scalable digital toolchain supporting the full engineering lifecycle, enabling knowledge reuse, reducing duplication, and increasing engineering throughput.
Deployed a centralized project asset repository serving as a single source of truth—enhancing transparency, version control, and stakeholder access to SE artifacts.
Boosted quality and relevance of use cases and system requirements by involving clients early through sprint reviews—transforming them from passive approvers to active co-creators.
Increased team morale and engagement by promoting shared ownership of the transformation process and reducing friction in daily engineering work.
Positioned the organization with a sustainable and scalable Systems Engineering foundation, enabling future growth without sacrificing engineering agility or quality.