The "physical and virtual space" will incorporate technical and non-technical work streams and will attempt to attract innovators and leaders to share knowledge and work on the challenges facing the global oil and gas industry.
These innovators are expected to include industry, students, researchers, entrepreneurs and subject matter experts.
The technical work stream will include a focus on floating and near-shore LNG, process plant design, and the role of artificial intelligence and analytics in streamlining operations and overcoming challenges faced in high-cost, high-risk and error-prone tasks.
The Pluto Support Centre, which came online in December, is expected to contribute learnings to WITH on the subject of FLNG, with the knowledge to be melded with other work streams.
The PSC is based in Perth, about 1500km away from the Pluto plant near Karratha. Bridging the distance gives Woodside a bit of a test-run on performing similar tasks for an FLNG vessel position on the North West Shelf.
Other companies such as Santos and Arrow Energy previously revealed plans for remote operations centres and data analytics strategies.
The non-technical work streams for WITH will seek to ensure that any innovations produced by WITH reach and impact the outside world, through strong connections with education providers to integrate the next crop of innovators and through developing a "commercialisation environment".
"To be able to adapt to a rapidly changing world, we're moving away from large physical organisations, by creating virtual environments and regularly refreshing the technology development agenda to define individual project needs and the partners to deliver them," Woodside said in a brochure on WITH.
"Innovative companies consciously design facilities and tools to support their wanted culture and behaviour. The most innovative ideas, for example, can often be traced back to informal interactions and communications.
"So we're using facilities and tools at hand (including virtual) to support interaction, real-time communication and relationship development across disciplines."
