NOV's DROPS story is best understood as a long-running example of how a major original equipment manufacturer can help the industry move from reaction to learning. The company designs, manufactures, services and upgrades much of the equipment that keeps drilling operations moving: top drives, derricks, drawworks, pipe-handling systems, rotary and handling tools, cranes, rig controls, downhole tools and the supporting systems around them. Many of these assets operate at height, move under load, experience vibration and require disciplined inspection and maintenance throughout their working life.
That makes NOV an important voice in dropped-object prevention. For an OEM, the work does not begin only when a crew identifies a loose item in the field. Prevention can start in the design review, the choice of primary and secondary retention, the number of parts exposed at height, the clarity of manufacturing documentation, the wording of user manuals and safety alerts, and the way lessons from incidents are translated back into product improvements and customer recommendations.
NOV has been part of the DROPS Asia conversation since the early years of the chapter, which began in 2009. During that period, dropped-object incidents involving top-drive equipment often created strong concern among operators and drilling contractors. Those discussions were not always easy. At a DROPS forum in Asia in 2012, the debate around top-drive incidents became particularly difficult, with operators, contractors and NOV all part of a frank industry conversation about responsibility, equipment performance and prevention.
What matters in that story is that NOV stayed in the room. Rather than allowing the discussion to remain a simple matter of blame, the company continued to engage with DROPS members and helped move the conversation toward the practical questions that actually reduce risk: equipment design, maintenance quality, inspection routines, OEM recommendations, customer implementation, contractor responsibilities and the way field experience is fed back into engineering.
That shift became more constructive in 2013, when a DROPS workshop in Singapore brought NOV together with drilling contractors and major operators. The purpose was to create a setting where the different parties could step away from confrontation and examine dropped-object prevention as a shared system. NOV embraced that opportunity for direct engagement, contributing OEM knowledge while listening to the operational realities faced by customers and contractors. For DROPS, this was an important moment because it showed how open technical dialogue can turn a difficult incident history into better understanding and better controls.
Around the same period, NOV developed its Global DROPS Task Force. That task force became an important platform for coordinating the company's approach to dropped-object prevention globally, connecting regional field experience with product engineering, documentation, service recommendations and customer support. Its work has helped create a continuous improvement loop: review incident information, identify recurring issues, improve equipment or manufacturing details, communicate recommendations for in-service assets, and support customers as they implement those recommendations.
Top-drive systems remain one of the clearest examples of this approach. A top drive is not a single risk point but a complex elevated system with covers, guards, motors, washpipe assemblies, link-tilt features, brackets, fasteners, accessories and interfaces with drill string components. Through DROPS Asia forums and related industry discussions, NOV has shown how historical issues can be reviewed, repeated concerns can be identified, and improvements can be engineered into equipment. From a DROPS perspective, this is risk reduction at source: not only adding secondary retention or relying on inspection, but designing problems out wherever possible.
NOV has also helped reinforce a message that is vital for the wider industry: OEM guidance only creates value when it is implemented. Product bulletins, inspection requirements, maintenance instructions and recommended modifications need to reach the right people, be understood, be planned into maintenance systems and be verified in the field. By discussing this openly, NOV has helped clarify the shared responsibilities between OEMs, drilling contractors, operators and service companies.
This is why NOV's continued presence in DROPS Asia forums has been valuable. The company has shown up, listened, explained and contributed over many years, including when the conversations were challenging. That kind of participation gives members direct access to OEM knowledge and helps ensure that discussions about incidents and preventive measures are based on facts, engineering understanding and practical implementation rather than assumption or blame.
The same mindset appears in NOV's approach to design documentation and customer guidance. Properly defined securing methods, competent application of primary fastenings and appropriate secondary retention are most effective when they are built into bills of material, manufacturing documentation, user instructions and service recommendations, then verified in practice. Earlier NOV DROPS material framed the design philosophy in practical terms: reduce the number of parts that could become dropped objects, place parts inside enclosed housings where possible, use securing methods that can be visually inspected, and consider even unlikely failure modes.
NOV's rotary and handling tools guidance makes the lifecycle point clear as well. Retention methods alone cannot prevent dropped objects without personnel awareness, regular inspection, maintenance, and replacement of worn, damaged or missing components with approved parts. Prevention depends on current information being available throughout the service life of equipment, through product bulletins, safety alerts, instruction manuals, customer portals, surveys and service support.
Lifecycle support is a recurring part of NOV's relevance to DROPS. Rig upgrades, crane upgrades, top-drive and iron-roughneck upgrades, controls upgrades, field engineering, rental equipment, commissioning, surveys and aftermarket service all affect how equipment risk is managed after delivery. A component that was secure at manufacture can be affected by vibration, corrosion, modification, poor replacement practices, missing retention, incompatible accessories or incomplete implementation of an OEM bulletin. Prevention is strongest when the manufacturer, owner, contractor and inspection team keep the equipment history visible.
NOV's inspection and rope-access services connect this lifecycle view directly to dropped-object surveys. Dropped-object surveys can help identify equipment and items mounted in derricks, cranes or other areas at height, record the risk category, location, fastening or secondary-retention method, photographs, inspection criteria and recommended corrective actions, and turn that information into inspection books crews can use over time. For DROPS members, this type of practical output is where engineering information becomes a usable field control.
More recently, NOV has also supported collaborative work on improved retention methods, including industry discussion around alternatives to traditional split pins. This is a significant topic for drilling operations because split pins and similar securing methods remain a recurring challenge in dropped-object prevention. OEM involvement gives this kind of work important technical credibility and can help the industry gain confidence in better solutions when they are proven.
NOV is also well placed to contribute to the continuing development of reliable-securing guidance. As DROPS reviews and updates key publications, including guidance last substantially updated in 2017, NOV's long-term participation gives the company a trusted route to share current technical understanding. Its input can help ensure that recommendations reflect modern equipment, global OEM standards, customer feedback and the practical realities of implementation in the field.
The value of NOV's participation is therefore broader than any one product, presentation or forum. It helps improve industry safety, gives customers and contractors direct access to OEM knowledge, supports fact-based incident learning, and protects the quality of the conversation when difficult topics arise. It also shows why major OEMs matter to DROPS: they can connect what happens in the field with the design, documentation and lifecycle support decisions that shape risk long before an item is found loose at height.
NOV's contribution to DROPS is a systems role: designing equipment with retention in mind, documenting securing methods, supporting customer access to recommendations, analysing incident patterns, upgrading products and manufacturing documents, participating in open industry dialogue, performing surveys, and helping operators optimise inspection schemes. In complex drilling environments, where elevated equipment and high-energy operations are routine, that systems role is exactly where a major OEM can make a meaningful difference.