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Symetri helps Liberty get up to speed and meet deadline [Oil & Gas News]
(Oil & Gas News Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) WHEN Aberdeen-based Liberty Drilling Equipment (LDE) was founded in October 2010, it had a tight deadline hanging over its head. It had to get its first products for the oil and gas industry designed and built by the following January, or risk losing a valuable client even before the business had really begun.
To add further pressure, the three-strong team knew that, to make this goal at all possible, they needed to use the latest design software. But, there was one problem; they were all skilled in 2D design, but none of them had used 3D digital prototyping software.
In September of that year LDE attended a presentation given by manufacturing design software specialist Symetri at Offshore Europe in Aberdeen, the hub of the UK oil and gas industries. It had been impressed by Symetri's expertise in 3D design and their knowledge of the oil and gas industry.
"We liked the fact that they had offices in Aberdeen as at the time, we thought we would need constant support so this would make it easier to call on them," explains Lindsey Macaulay of Liberty Drilling. Macaulay and the team bought three seats of Autodesk Inventor, plus importantly, a number of sessions at Symetri's fully-equipped Aberdeen training facility.
"This was our first move into 3D design but we found the software very user-friendly," says Macaulay. "We certainly wouldn't have been able to meet our January deadline using 2D design software."
"The training was thorough and we came away feeling confident we could start using the software straight away. Also we didn't have to waste time travelling elsewhere in the country to attend the sessions," he adds.
Symetri's training methods were certainly effective. After these sessions, the team became highly productive very quickly and were soon able to develop, "a huge number of brand new and innovative products in a short space of time, including a surface wellhead system, a variety of mudline suspension systems and a range of large diameter pipe correctors." Consequently, they were able to design and build their first systems to achieve their goal.
So why and how does Inventor enable faster design? First, says Macaulay, it enables designers to check the interfaces of all individual parts to avoid clashes and interferences.
Also, a change made anywhere in the model is automatically updated everywhere else in the design. "Using 2D design solutions this was a massive task; for significant revisions it could take weeks to coordinate everything. Using Inventor everything is done automatically and takes a few minutes at the very most.
"This means designers can afford to experiment and try out ideas to optimise the design without wasting too much time. The process is faster – and because designers have time to reach the best possible solution, confident that all parts of the model and associated documents have been coordinated, the design is more reliable and accurate saving more time further down the line."
Although Liberty Drilling's design team is based in Aberdeen, the equipment is actually produced in Holland. However, Macaulay believes that collaboration is made smoother by Inventor's ability to produce top quality drawings from the 3D models, so that the 3D geometry can be fed directly into the machine shop. "There have been very few queries or errors from our colleagues here which is another massive benefit," says Macaulay.
The visual element of a 3D model also brings advantages. "As time goes by, fewer people will be able to read a 2D drawing," he adds. "With a 3D model even customers who are not trained in engineering can understand what we are doing. This boosts their confidence which, in turn, leads to faster decision making."
Also, because of the restricted space available on an oil platform, it is vital that equipment can fit on the deck and doesn't take up more area than necessary. Using digital prototypes, the team can check the footprint of a product and ensure it fits.
(c) 2012 Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company
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