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Brownfield data challenge: cutting costs, delays, risks [Oil & Gas News](Oil & Gas News Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) EVERYONE in the industry would prefer to run a plant they have been involved with from conceptual design to commissioning, all handled by a single EPC contractor who has handed over a perfect set of data files. However, in practice, most of us have to function within plants that incorporate brownfield elements built in the past for another company, which are usually poorly documented. This legacy plant documentation is likely to be incomplete, unstructured and in a variety of formats, introducing a range of operational, safety and financial risks. When acquiring existing facilities, the new owner/operator will often discover that the various contractors who were involved in engineering and construction over the years used different design and data management tools. Therefore, the information that exists is often in unintelligent formats like scanned documents, PDFs, and images. Some documents might only exist in paper form. Leaving this information unmanaged leads to further duplication, fragmentation, and degradation of information integrity. Furthermore, when a brownfield plant is initiated after a turnaround there is likely to be a significant data disconnect between the main EPC contractor and the subcontractors working on the project. As a result, owner/operator personnel often set up their own data stores, leading to additional fragmentation. This lack of reliable plant data also affects new-build plant elements. During this frenetic period, documents, drawings, and electronic files are distributed in boxes throughout the temporary construction offices and taken onto the site by craft workers. Whether this information is ever captured electronically is questionable.COSTS AND RISKS Trustworthy engineering data and documentation are essential for effective project delivery and safe, efficient operations. Incomplete, unreliable and unstructured plant data exposes the plant owner/operator to significant risks. It is challenging to solve a problem or take a critical decision if inadequate information means that the root cause of problems is difficult to find, or if there are undocumented dependencies between systems. Safety risks are even more important to consider. Inadequate information can pose challenges for maintenance and make it difficult to isolate equipment in an emergency. Similarly, if plant components are discovered to be substandard, all locations where they have been used need to be identified so that the components in question can be replaced. That requires detailed, up-to-date and easily accessible materials records. SOLUTIONS FOR CHANGING DATA What is really needed is a single point of access to all plant data. We need a tool to bring organisation and structure to unstructured information and make it easy to access. Such a tool should provide access to data in a wide range of formats and enable contractors and owner/operators to handle unstructured data more efficiently, thereby reducing associated risks. The key requirement is that the tool should help users find the information they need, even if initially they are not sure what they are looking for. This means combining the strengths of computers (for instance, continuously scanning folders for new information) with those of skilled engineers (for example, being able to quickly evaluate duplicates to pick the best master). DIVERSE DATA FORMATS Plant data is likely to come in a variety of file formats: 2D and 3D CAD systems (for example, AutoCAD and MicroStation), specialist plant design software, office software, PDFs, document scans, photographs, and laser scans. Ideally, the tool should provide convenient access to all these files. It should also allow the user to see the relationships between files and walk through the plant using photographs and laser scans which accurately represent the as-exists plant (which may well be different from the as-designed or as-built plant). DATA MANAGEMENT One would also expect plant information management software to have options to browse, query, sort, filter, and count information. These functions could be used for reports, cause and effect analyses, document quality assurance, etc. Reports could include tag lists, document lists, cross-reference lists, and lists of missing documents.IMPLEMENTATION When first installed, software should crawl through all files in identified locations and subsequently monitor relevant folders to check if new files are added. It is essential that documents and tag numbers are correctly linked. This provides effective access to information, helps to place everything in context and helps to determine the impact of proposed changes. The tool must also support multiple tag formats (for example, as used by different contractors) and be able to identify tag numbers in CAD drawings and scanned documents, even if they have to be reconstructed. After the initial set up, an effective data management tool should immediately provide convenient access to the formerly unstructured plant data. This will save time and costs while improving safety and reliability.Intergraph Process, Power & Marine (PP&M) is a major provider of engineering software for the design, construction, and operation of process plants, ships and offshore facilities. Based on its extensive process industry experience, Intergraph has developed the SmartPlant Fusion package to deal with unstructured information challenges. (c) 2014 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |