The Long Game: Brendon Hayward

March 5, 2020

Brendon Hayward is managing director and co-founder at Osbit. His love for machinery began in childhood on the family farm, watching machines do what they do best. He started his career in bespoke offshore engineering as a design engineer with SMD in 2000. In 2002, at Pearson Engineering, he designed land mine clearance products and associated systems, moving back into the offshore sector in 2008 as engineering director of Pipecoil and president of Pipecoil Inc., USA. In 2010, he took the opportunity to co-found offshore equipment supplier Osbit and has been managing director since 2015. He believes organisational growth and technological innovation stems from engineering a structure and culture that empowers people to develop and grow

PAST

When Osbit started, the oil and gas market was buoyant. The oil price was much higher in those early years, around double what it is now. Offshore wind was gaining momentum, presenting opportunities to innovate, particularly in terms of safety.

The first technology we introduced was a walk to work gangway system for accessing offshore wind turbines – reducing project risk transferring staff from installation vessels.

We also got involved in increasing the operating windows of legacy subsea equipment via upgrades.

Our approach then – and now – is to look at the problem from first principles to find the most appropriate solution, improving safety.

The stress in the market caused by the oil price drop in 2014 really refocused the industry. The shift in mindset on value, cost and risk presented a real technological opportunity for us.

We worked with global offshore technology leader Helix Energy Solutions to provide revolutionary well intervention solutions to increase safety and reduce project risk.

PRESENT

We don’t have products and services at Osbit, we have technology streams.

We’re more than a product manufacturer – pushing a catalogue or tweaking what we’ve already created. And we’re more than a service provider – we’re fully immersed in and learn from all aspects of every project from design to delivery.

The result is a library of proven knowledge and configurable, modular technology that we use to improve safety, reduce operating time and benefit the environment.

It enables us to deliver first of type equipment for clients in oil and gas, wind and polymetallic nodule recovery, to tight timescales, making more possible for our clients who are leading the global energy transition.

Things get done because of how you work with other people. Our organisation is based on a network. That network avoids unnecessary corporate hierarchy, facilitating extremely fast, effective communication and project-based teaching and learning throughout the organisation.

This allows us to deliver incredible things with an increased level of safety and reducing risk.

When problem-solving, it’s never safe to assume that someone with age and experience has all the understanding and someone younger and less experienced doesn’t. The waterfall of knowledge assumption is not representative of real life.

We’ve always looked for and recruited amazing people with great attitudes and a hunger for learning. That’s what we still do.

FUTURE

The world needs, and is demanding, an energy revolution. We are part of driving the advancements required to facilitate this. We will continue to leverage our North East offshore supply chain in enabling the delivery of a clean energy future.

There’s been a lot of talk in the energy industry about collaboration. To reap the rewards of authentic collaboration, we must communicate openly, better and faster throughout the supply chain.

We will continue to evolve Osbit Insight, our bespoke technical knowledge sharing and learning offering.

Launched in 2019, Osbit Insight has already involved Tier One global energy leaders Ørsted, Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall, sharing learning to enable partners throughout the supply chain to deliver energy more efficiently.

OSBIT

www.osbit.com