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Industrial innovation, business opportunities, and reality sites: Part 2

Updated: Apr 26, 2023

Capital-intensive industries need to maximize uptime and returns while minimizing cost and time efficiencies across all parts of their operations. Making the right decisions quickly is critical to reducing downtime and minimizing health, safety and environment (HSE) risk.


In our last post, we introduced the four opportunities associated with agile asset management in heavy industry with digital twin technology. In this post, we’ll dive into more detail on the first two of those opportunities: increased efficiencies and optimization of production.


Increased efficiencies


PROCESS AUTOMATION

Digital twins are connected to the physical assets, and process the data ingested to generate operational insights. These digital twins can be used to automate operations at drilling, production and processing facilities. By monitoring and analyzing the data in real-time, VEERUM can generate optimal control commands for actuators attached to the equipment. This level of automation also minimizes site exposure risk, improving the safety of the asset by decreasing accident rates, and improving consistency while enabling 24/7 operation.

FUTURE SCENARIO DEVELOPMENT

Digital twins can enable the development of optimal future-operating and future-development scenarios through a series of ‘what-if’ simulations. This scenario simulation can reduce non-productive time when updating control parameters or developing new assets.


MINIMIZING INFORMATION WASTAGE AND MISCOMMUNICATION

Regular updates to a digital twin notify all relevant parties in a supply chain or project of the update simultaneously on entry. These notifications minimize the human errors of miscommunication, forgetting to communicate, and communicating inaccurate information as the message or need is passed up or down the chain.

Traditional documentation approaches also frequently result in misplaced data and information when transitioning between phases of development. When all development activities are embedded in the digital twin, the risk and cost of data loss is eliminated, there is a minimized risk of repeat work, and project timelines are accelerated.


ENHANCED COLLABORATIVE DECISION MAKING

Capital-intensive organizations regularly require multiple experts to review, discuss, and collectively develop operational or resolution scenarios. If these experts are not co-located, or near the facility, timely collaboration can be challenging, even with traditional teleconferencing.

Digital twins allow experts to work from anywhere in the world with full access to all aggregated, real-time data that can be visualized, assessed, and collaborated upon virtually within a single web-based interface. This allows them to address the obstacles of offshore and other remote locations while reducing site exposure risk and inspection costs.

How VEERUM supports and enables increased efficiencies:

  1. VEERUM allows the users to monitor construction progress of an asset to plan ahead and support the development of future operating and future development scenarios.

  2. VEERUM organizes, aggregates, and visualizes all your data and makes it accessible to all users via a single interface, minimizing information loss and miscommunication, and greatly reducing site exposure risk.

  3. VEERUM improves the safety of the asset by allowing the user to visualize and measure, for example, confined and restricted spaces to decrease accidents/near misses and enabling 24/7 operation and business continuity.

  4. VEERUM enables seamless, captured, remote collaboration within the application.


Optimization of production


REDUCED TIME FOR PLAN TO PRODUCTION

Most facilities have unique design needs, so for greenfield assets, engineering teams are required to design from scratch. With a digital twin, both design and construction time can be significantly shortened, with all asset data aggregating in one 3D viewer. For organizations that have invested in digital technology, users can combine digital models of previous projects with new site parameters to develop the initial virtual site for the new asset. Simulations are run on the virtual facility to determine optimum design and engineering data is embedded in the reality site.


Once constructed, the high-fidelity digital twin allows the facility to be pre-tuned, and can verify the control loops for correct operations, significantly reducing the time required for commissions while decreasing the HSE risk. With all the data now in the digital twin, the transition of using the digital twin for construction and commissioning can seamlessly be handed over to operations and maintenance with all the associated cost and time savings gains.


ASSET PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Digital twins ingest, aggregate, and analyze all engineering, geospatial, planning, scheduling and operational data in a single web-based interface.


The insights provided through this analysis include operating conditions, production rates, bottlenecks, malfunctions, structural integrity, potential failure modes and rates, and requirements for near term repairs and replacements. Insights are used to perform ‘what-if-scenarios’ and to optimize plans for intervention for repairs, replacements, and production.


How VEERUM supports and enables the optimization of production:

  1. VEERUM provides a full understanding of the status of as asset down to a component level through contextualization and engineering intelligence. This further supports the user in improved planning and productivity of the assets. VEERUM enables digital component quality verification while giving you a complete control over your project and an accurate 3D verification of your progress.

  2. VEERUM supports remote operations and maintenance. Planners, inspectors, engineers, and supply chain managers are no longer required to be physically present on site. Inspections, assessment of as-built information and collaboration with all stakeholders, including contractors and vendors, can be conducted remotely from the safety of the home or office. Employees are empowered to work more efficiently, safely, and accurately from anywhere in the world, and business continuity is ensured.

In our next post, the final of our three- part series, we’ll dive into the nitty-gritty on the next two opportunities of agile asset management with digital twin technology; improved safety and contributions to corporate sustainability.


Are you interested in learning more about digital transformation but not sure where to start? VEERUM’s team of industry experts can help. It’s time to harness technology to make data-informed decisions, prioritize the health and safety of our workers, and heighten organizational efficiency.


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