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PLM Benchmark – Operator 1 What did they do and why?

3/9/2018

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This as a first in a series of articles where I share some experiences with you from different product companies, EPC’s and operators.
The articles will cover the motivation for doing as they did, and where their main focus was put in order to achieve their goals.

There is a span in the different experiences of almost 20 years… I would like you to reflect a bit on that and keep in mind some of the buzzwords of today. Especially digital twin, IOT and Big Data analytics.
In this series I will use my information structure map, or the “circle of life” as a client jokingly called it, to explain where the different companies put their focus in terms of information management strategy and why.

An overview explaining the different structures can be found in the article:
Plant Information Management - Information Structures, and further details regarding each information structure are discussed in:
Plant Engineering meets Product Engineering in capital projects
Handover to logistics and supply chain in capital projects
Plant Information Management - Installation and Commissioning
Plant Information Management – Operations and Maintenance
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Operator 1’s first objectives was to shorten the project execution time from design through installation and commissioning by letting the projects information model be gradually built up through all project phases and by all stakeholders in one common platform.
By doing it this way there would be no handover of documentation but rather a handover of access and responsibility of data. A large focus was put on standardizing information exchange between both stakeholders in the capital projects and between computer systems. The entry point to all information was a 3D representation of the data structures!

Makes you think of digital twin……. However this initiative was before anybody had heard of it...The 3D representation was NOT a design model, but rather a three-dimensional representation of the asset linked to all the information structures creating different dimensions or information layers if you will.

So it had to be quite small assets this operator was dealing with you might think?

Actually no, one of the assets managed was about a million tags. Concepts from the gaming industry like Level Of Detail and back-face culling were used to achieve the level of performance needed from the 3D side.
So why this enormous effort by an operator to streamline just the initial stages of an assets lifecycle?
I mean the operators real benefit comes from operating the asset in order to produce whatever it needs to produce, right?
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Because it was seen as a prerequisite to capitalize on plant information in training, simulation, operations, maintenance and decommissioning. Two words summarizes the motivation: Maximum up-time. How to achieve it: operational run-time data from sensors linked and compared with accurate and parametric as-designed, as-built and as-maintained data.
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​Figure 2. shows what information structures the operator put most emphasis on. Quite naturally the Functional structure (tag structure and design requirements), and corresponding physically installed asset information was highly important, and this is what they started with (see figure 3). Reference Data to be able to compare and consolidate data from the different structures was next in line together with an extensive parts (article) catalog of what could be supplied by whom in different regions of the world.
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There was an understanding that a highly document-oriented industry could not shift completely to structured data and information structures overnight for everything, so document management was also included as what was regarded as an intermediate step. The last type of structure they focused on was project execution structures (Work Breakdown Structures). This was not because it was regarded as less important, actually it was regarded as highly important since it introduced the time dimension with traceability and control of who should do what, or did what when. The reasoning behind it was that since work breakdown structures tied into absolutely everything, they wanted to test and roll out the “base model” of data structures in the three-dimensional world (the 3D database) before introducing the fourth dimension.

​Bjorn Fidjeland
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The header image used in this post is by Jacek Jędrzejowski and purchased at dreamstime.com
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Big Data and PLM, what’s the connection?

1/3/2018

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I was challenged the other day to explain the connection between Big Data and PLM by a former colleague. The connection might not be immediately apparent if your viewpoint is from traditional Product Lifecycle Management systems which primarily has to do with managing the design and engineering data of a product or plant/facility.

However, if we first take a look at a definition of Product Lifecycle Management from Wikipedia:

“In industry, product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from inception, through engineering design and manufacture, to service and disposal of manufactured products. PLM integrates people, data, processes and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprise.”
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Traditionally it has looked much like this
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Then let’s look at a definition of Big Data
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“Big data is data sets that are so voluminous and complex that traditional data processing application software are inadequate to deal with them. Big data challenges include capturing data, data storage, data analysis, search, sharing, transfer, visualization, querying, updating and information privacy. There are three dimensions to big data known as Volume, Variety and Velocity.
Lately, the term "big data" tends to refer to the use of predictive analytics, user behavior analytics, or certain other advanced data analytics methods that extract value from data, and seldom to a particular size of data set. "There is little doubt that the quantities of data now available are indeed large, but that’s not the most relevant characteristic of this new data ecosystem." Analysis of data sets can find new correlations to "spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime and so on.”

Included in Big Data you’ll find data sets harvested from sensors within all sorts of equipment and products as well as data fed back from software running within products. One can say that a portion of Big Data is the resulting feedback from the Internet of Things. Data in itself is not of any value whatsoever, but if the data can be analyzed to reveal meaning, trends or knowledge about how a product is used by different customer segments then it has tremendous value to product manufacturers.
If we take a look at the operational phase of a product, and by that, I mean everything that happens from manufactured product to disposal, then any manufacturer would like to get their hands on such data, either to improve the product itself or sell services associated with it. Such services could be anything from utilizing the product as a platform for an ecosystem of connected products to new business models where the product itself is not the key but rather the service it provides. You might sell guaranteed uptime or availability provided that the customer also buys into your service program for instance.
 
The resulting analysis of the data should in my view be managed by, or at least serve as input to the product definition because the knowledge gleamed from all the analytics of Big Data sets ultimately impacts the product definition itself since it should lead to revised product designs that fulfills the customer needs better. It might also lead to the revelation that it would be better to split a product in two different designs going after two distinct end user behavior categories found as a result of data analysis from the operational phase of the products.
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Connected products, Big Data and analysis will to a far greater extent than before allow us to do the following instead:
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It will mean that experience throughout the full lifecycle can be made available to develop better products, tailor to new end user behavior trends and create new business models.

Note: the image above focuses on the feedback loops to product engineering, but such feedback loops should also be made available from for instance service and operation to manufacturing.

Most companies I work with tell me that the feedback loops described in the image above is either too poor, or virtually nonexistent. Furthermore, they all say that such feedback loops are becoming vital for their survival as more and more of their revenue comes from services after a product sale and not from the product sale itself. This means that it is imperative for them to have as much reliable and analyzed data as possible about their products performance in the field, how their customers are actually using them and how they are maintained.

For these companies at least, the connection between Big Data analysis and its impact on Product Lifecycle Management is becoming clearer and clearer.

Bjorn Fidjeland

The header image used in this post is by garrykillian and purchased at dreamstime.com

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Digital Twin - What needs to be under the hood?

10/22/2017

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In the article Plant Information Management – Information Structures, and the following posts regarding Plant Information Management (see Archive) I explained in more detail the various information structures, the importance of structuring the data as object structures with interconnecting relationships to create context between the different information sources. 

​What does all of this have to do with the digital twin? - Let's have a look.

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​Information structures and their interconnecting relationships can be described by one of the major fashion word these days, the digital thread or digital twin.
The term and concept of a digital twin was first coined by Michael Grieves at the University of Michigan in 2002, but has since taken on a life of its own in different companies.
 
Below is an example of what information can be accessed from a digital twin or rather what the digital twin can serve as an entry point for:
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​If your data is structured in such a way with connected objects, attributes and properties, an associated three-dimensional representation of the physically delivered instance is a tremendously valuable asset as a carrier of information. It is however, not a pre- requisite that it is a 3D model, a simple dashboard giving access to the individual physical items might be enough. The 3D stuff is always promoted in the glossy sales representations by various companies, but it’s not needed for every possible use case. In a plant or aircraft, it makes a lot of sense, since the volume of information and number of possible entry points to the full data set is staggering, but it might not be necessary to have individual three-dimensional representations for all mobile phones ever sold. It might suffice to have each data set associated with each serial number.
 
On the other hand, if you have a 3D representation, it can become a front end used by end users for finding, searching and analyzing all connected information from the data structures described in my previous blog posts. Such insights takes us to a whole new level of understanding of each delivered products life, their challenges and opportunities in different environments and the way they are actually being used by end customers.
 
Let’s say that we via the digital twin in the figure above select a pump. The tag of that pump uniquely identifies the functional location in the facility. An end user can pull information from the system the pump belongs to in the form of a parametric Piping & Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID), the functional specification for the pump in the designed system, information about the actually installed pump with serial number, manufacturing information, supplier, certificates, performed installation & commissioning procedures and actual operational data of the pump itself.
 
The real power in the operational phase becomes evident when operational data is associated with each delivered pump. In such a case the operational data can be compared with environmental conditions the physical equipment operates in. Let’s say that the fluid being pumped contains more and more sediments, and our historical records of similar conditions tells us that the pump will likely fail during the next ten days due to wear and tear of critical components. However, it is also indicated that if we reduce the power by 5 percent we will be able to operate the full system until the next scheduled maintenance window in 15 days. Information like that gives real business value in terms of increased uptime.
 
Let’s look at some other possibilities.
If we now consider a full facility with a three-dimensional representation:
During the EPC phase it is possible to associate the 3D model with a fourth dimension, time, turning it into a 4D model. By doing so, the model can be used to analyze and validate different installation execution plans, or monitor the actual ongoing installation of the Facility. We can actually see the individual parts of the model appearing as time progresses.
 
A fifth dimension can also be added, namely cost. Here the cost development over time according to one or several proposed installation execution plans or the actual installation itself can be analyzed or monitored.
This is already being done by some early movers in the construction industry where it is referred to as 5D or Virtual Design & Construction.
 
The model can also serve as an important asset when planning and coordinating space claims made by different disciplines during the design as well as during the actual installation. It can easily give visual feedback if there is a conflict between space claims made by electrical engineering and mechanical engineering, or if there is a conflict in the installation execution plan in terms of planned access by different working crews.
More and more companies are also making use of laser scanning in order to get an accurate 3D model of what has been actually installed so far. This model can easily be compared with the design model to see if there are any deviations. If deviations are found, they can be acted upon by analyzing how it will impact the overall system if it is left as it is, or will it require re-design? Does the decision to leave it as it is change the performance of the overall system? Are we still able to perform the rest of the installation, due to less available space?
Answers to these questions might entail that we will have to dismantle the parts of the system that has deviations. It is however a lot better and cost effective to identify such problems as early as possible.
 
This is just great, right? Such insights as mentioned would have huge impacts on how EPC’s manage their projects, operators run their plants and how product vendors can operate or service their equipment in the field, as well as feeding information back to engineering to make better products.
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​New business models can be created in the likes of: “We sell power by the hour, dear customer, you don’t even have to buy the asset itself”!
(Power-by-the-Hour is a trademark of Rolls-Royce, although the concept itself is 50 years old you can read about a more recent development here)
 
So why haven’t more companies already done it?
 
Because in order to get there, the underlying data must be connected, and in the form of… yes data as in objects, attributes and relationships. It requires a massive shift from document orientation to connected data orientation to be at its most effective.
 
On the bright side, several companies in very diverse industries have started this journey, and some are already starting to harvest the fruits of their adventure.
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My advice to any company thinking about doing the same would be along the lines of:
When eating this particular elephant, do it one bite at the time, remember to swallow and let your organization digest between each bite.

Bjorn Fidjeland

The header image used in this post is by Elnur and purchased at dreamstime.com

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Data Integration – Why Dictionaries…..?

8/19/2017

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Most companies of more than medium size that does any engineering soon finds itself in a similar situation to the figure below.
The names of the applications might be different, but the underlying problem remains the same: Engineering data is created by different best of bread design tools used by different engineering disciplines, and the data must at some point in time be consolidated across disciplines and communicated to another discipline. This other discipline being procurement, project execution, manufacturing and/or supply chain.
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This article is a continuation of the thoughts discussed in an earlier post called integration strategies, if the full background is wanted.
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​As the first figure indicates,  this has often ended up in a lot of application specific point to point integrations. For the last 15 years, more or less, so called Enterprise Service Buses have been available to organizations, enterprise and software architects. The Enterprise Service Bus, often referred to as ESB is a common framework for integration allowing different applications to subscribe to published data from other applications and thereby creating a standardized “information highway” between different company domains and their software of choice.
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​By implementing such an Enterprise Service Bus, the situation in the company would look somewhat like the figure above. Now from an enterprise architecture point of view this looks fine, but what I often see in organizations I work with is more depressing. Let’s dive in and see what often goes on behind the scene.
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Modern ESB’s have graphical user interfaces that can interpret the publishing applications data format, usually by means of xml or rather the xsd. The same is true for the subscribing applications.
This makes it easy to create integrations by simply dragging and dropping data sources from one to the other. Of course, often, one will have to combine some attributes from one application into one specific attribute in another application, but this is also usually supported.
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So far everything is just fine, and integration projects have become a lot easier than before. BUT, and there is a big but. What happens when you have multiple applications integrated?
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The problems of point to point integrations have effectively been re-created inside the Enterprise Service Bus, because if I change the name of an attribute in a publishing application’s connector, all the subscribing application’s connectors must be changed as well.
How can this be avoided? Well several ESB’s support the use of so called dictionaries, and the chances are that the Enterprise Service Bus ironically is already using one in the background.

So, what is a dictionary in this context?
Think of it as a Rosetta stone. Well, what is a Rosetta stone you might ask. The find of the Rosetta stone was the breakthrough in understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs. The stone contained a decree with the same text in hieroglyphs, Demotic script and ancient Greek allowing us to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs.
​Imagine the frustration before this happened. A vast repository of information carved in stone all over the magnificent finds from an earlier civilization…. And nobody could make sense of it….. Sounds vaguely familiar in another context.
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Back to our more modern integration issues.
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​If a dictionary or Rosetta stone is placed in the middle, serving as an interpretation layer, it won’t matter if the name of some of the attributes in one of the publishing applications changes. None of the other applications connectors will be affected, since it is only the mapping to the dictionary that must be changed which is the responsibility of the publishing application.
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If such a dictionary is based on an industry standard, it will also have some very beneficial side effects.
Why?
Because if your internal company’s integration dictionary is standards based, then the effort of generating information sent to clients and suppliers, traditionally referred to as transmittals or submittals, will be very easy indeed.

If we expand our line of thought to interpretation of data from operational systems (harvesting data from physical equipment in the field). Commonly referred to as IoT, or acquisition of data through SCADA systems, then the opportunities becomes even greater.

In this case it really is possible to kill two birds with one stone, and thereby creating a competitive advantage!

Bjorn Fidjeland

The header image used in this post is by Bartkowski  and purchased at dreamstime.com
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Who owns what data when…..?

7/7/2017

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​A vital questions when looking at cross departmental process optimization and integration is in my view: who owns what data when in the overall process? 
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Usually this question will spark up quite a discussion between the process owners, company departments, data owners and the different enterprise architects. The main reason for this is that depending on where the stakeholders have their main investment, they tend to look at “their” part of the process as the most important and the “master” for their data.

Just think about sales with their product configurators, engineering with CAD/PLM, supply chain, manufacturing & logistics with ERP and MES. Further along the lifecycle you encounter operations and service with EAM, Enterprise Asset Management, systems sometimes including MRO, Maintenance Repair and Operations/Overhaul. The last part being for products in operational use. Operations and service is really on the move right now due to the ability to receive valuable feedback from all products used in the field (commonly referred to as Internet of Things) even for consumer products, but hold your horses on the last one just for a little while.
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The different departments and process owners will typically have claimed ownership of their particular parts of the process, making it look something like this:
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This would typically be a traditional linear product engineering, manufacturing and distribution process. Each department has also selected IT tools that suit their particular needs in the process.
This in turn leads to information handovers both between company departments and IT tools, and due to the complexity of IT system integration, usually, as little as possible of data is handed from one system to the next.
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So far it has been quite straight forward to answer “who owns what data”, especially for the data that is actually created in the departments own IT system, however, the tricky one is the when in “ who owns what data when”, because the when implies that ownership of certain data is transferred from one department and/or IT system to the next one in the process. In a traditional linear one, such information would be “hurled over the wall” like this:
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Now, since as little information as possible flowed from one department / IT system to the next, each department would make it work as best as they could, and create or re-create information in their own system for everything that did not come directly through integration.
Only in cases where there were really big problems with lacking or clearly faulty data, an initiative would be launched to look at the process and any system integrations that would be affected.

The end result being that the accumulated information throughout the process that can be associated with the end product, that is to say the physical product sold to the consumer, is only a fraction of the actual sum of information generated in the different department’s processes and systems.
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Now what happens when operations & services get more and more detailed information from each individual product in the field, and starts feeding that information back to the various departments and systems in the process?
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The process will cease to be a linear one, it becomes circular with constant feedback of analyzed information flowing back to the different departments and IT systems.

Well what’s the problem you might ask.

The first thing that becomes clear is that each department with their systems does not have enough information to make effective use of all the information coming from operations, because they each have a quite limited set of data concerning mainly their discipline.

Secondly, the feedback loop is potentially constant or near real-time which will open up for completely new service offerings, however, the current process and infrastructure going from design through engineering and manufacturing was never built to tackle this kind of speed and agility.

Ironically, from a Product Lifecycle Management perspective, we’ve been talking about breaking down information and departmental silos in companies to utilize the L in PLM for as long as I can remember, however the way it looks now, it is probably going to be operations and the enablement of Internet Of Things and Big Data analytics that will force companies to go from strictly linear to circular processes.

And when you ultimately do, please always ask yourself “who should own what data when”, because ownership of data is not synonymous with the creation of data. Ownership is transferred along the process and accumulates to a full data set of the physically manufactured product until it is handed back again as a result of fault in the product or possible optimization opportunities for the product.

 – And it will happen faster and faster
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Bjorn Fidjeland

The header image used in this post is by Bacho12345 and purchased at dreamstime.com
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Digitalization - sure, but on what foundation?

4/7/2017

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The last couple of years I’ve been working with some companies on digitalization projects and strategies. Digitalization is of course very attractive in a number of industries:

  • Equipment manufacturers, where digitalization can be merged with Internet Of Things to create completely new service offerings and relationships with the customers
  • Capital projects EPC’s and operators, where a digital representation of the delivery can be handed over as a “digital twin” to the operator , and where the operator can use it and hook it up to EAM or MRO solutions to monitor the physical asset real-time in a virtual world. The real value for the operator here is increased up-time and lower operational costs, whereas EPC’s can offer new kinds of services and in addition mitigate project risks better.
  • Construction industry, where the use of VDC (Virtual Design & Construction) technology can be extended to help the facility owner minimize operational costs and optimize comfort for tenants by connecting all kinds of sensors in a modern building and adjust accordingly.
But hang on a second: If we look at the definition of digitalization, at least the way Gartner views it

“Digitalization is the use of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities; it is the process of moving to a digital business.” (Source: Gartner)

…The process of moving to a digital business….

The digitalization strategies of most of the companies I’ve been working with focuses on the creation of new services and revenue possibilities on the service side of the lifecycle of a product or facility, so AFTER the product has been delivered, or the plant is in operation.
There is nothing wrong with that, but if the process from design through engineering and manufacturing is not fully digitalised (by that I do not mean documents in digital format, but data as information structures linked together) then it becomes very difficult to capitalize on the promises of the digitalization strategy.
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Consider 2 examples
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Figure 1.
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Figure 1 describes a scenario where design and engineering tools work more or less independently and where the result is consolidated in documents or excel before communicated to ERP. This is the extreme scenario to illustrate the point, and most companies have some sort of PDM/PLM or Engineering Register to perform at least partial consolidation of data before sending to ERP. However I often find some design or engineering tools operating as “islands” outside the consolidation layer.

So if we switch viewpoint to the new digital service offering promoted to end customers. What happens when a sensor is reporting back a fault in the delivered product? The service organization must know exactly what has been delivered, where the nearest spare parts are, how the product  is calibrated etc. to quickly fix the problem with a minimum use of resources in order to make a profit and to exceed customer expectation to gain a good reputation.
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How likely is that to happen with the setup in figure 1?
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Figure 2.
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The setup in figure 2 describes a situation where design and engineering information is consolidated together with information regarding the actually delivered physical products. This approach does not necessarily dictate that the information is only available in one and only one software platform, however the essence is that the data must be structured and consolidated.

Again let’s switch viewpoint to the new digital service offering promoted to end customers. What happens when a sensor is reporting back a fault in the delivered product?
When data is available as structured and linked data it is instantly available to the service organization, and appropriate measures can be taken while informing the customer with accurate data.
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My clear recommendation is that if you are embarking on a digitalization journey to enhance your service offering and offer new service models, then make sure you have a solid digital foundation to build those offerings on. Because if you don’t it will be very difficult to achieve the margins you are dreaming of.
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Bjorn Fidjeland

The header image used in this post is by kurhan and purchased at dreamstime.com
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Plant Information Management – Operations and Maintenance

1/29/2017

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This post is a continuation of the posts in the Plant Information Management series of:
“Plant Information Management - Installation and Commissioning”
“Handover to logistics and supply chain in capital projects”
“Plant Engineering meets Product Engineering in capital projects”
 “Plant Information Management - What to manage?”

During operations and maintenance, the two main structures of information needed in order to operate the plant in a safe and reliable manner is the functional or tag structure and the physically installed structure.
The functional tag structure is a multidiscipline consolidated view of all design requirements and criteria, whereas the physically installed structure is a representation of what was actually installed and commissioned together with associated data. It is important to note that the physically installed structure evolves over time during operations and maintenance, so it is vital to make baselines of both structures together to obtain “As-Installed” and “As-Commissioned” documentation
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Figure 1.
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Let’s zoom in on some of the typical use cases of the two structures.
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Figure 2.
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The requirements in the blue tag structure are fulfilled by the physical installation, the yellow structures. In a previous post I promised to get back to why they are represented as separate objects. The reason for this is that during operations one would often like to replace a physical individual on site with another physical individual. This new physical individual still has to fulfill the tag requirements, as the tag requirements (system design) have not changed. In addition we need full traceability of not only what is currently installed, but also what used to be installed at that functional location (see figure 3).
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Figure 3.

Here we have replaced the vacuum pump during operations with another vacuum pump from another vendor. The new vacuum pump must comply with the same functional requirements as the old one even if they might have different product designs.
This is a very common use case where a product manufacturing company comes up with a new design a few years later. The product might be a lot cheaper and still fulfills the requirements, so if the operator of the plant has 500 instances of such products in the facility, it makes perfect sense to replace them when the old product nears end of life or have extensive maintenance programs.
 
Another very important reason to keep the tag requirements and physically installed as separate objects is if….or rather when the operator wishes to execute a modification or extension project to the plant.
In such cases one must still manage and record the day to day operation of the plant (work requests and work orders performed on physical equipment in the plant) while at the same time performing a plant design and execution project. This entails Design, Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Commissioning all over again.
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Figure 4.
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The figure shows, that when the blue functional tag structure is kept separate from the yellow physically installed structure we can still operate the current plant on a day to day basis, and at the same time perform new design on the revised system (Revision B).
This allows us to execute all the processes right up until commissioning on the new revision, and when successfully commissioned, the revision B becomes operational.
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This all sounds very good in theory, but in practice it is a bit more challenging, as there in the meantime might have been made change orders that effected the design of the previous revision as a result of operations. This is one of the use cases where structured or linked data instead of a document centric approach really pays off, because such a change order would immediately indicate that it would affect the new design, and thus,  appropriate measures can be taken at an early stage instead of nasty surprises popping up during installation and commissioning of the new system.

Bjorn Fidjeland

The header image used in this post is by nightman1965 and purchased at dreamstime.com
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Plant Information Management - Installation and Commissioning

1/27/2017

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I realize that the last post “Handover to logistics and supply chain in capital projects” went quite a lot further in the information lifecycle than the headline suggested, so here is a brief recap on how structured and linked data can support processes during construction/installation and commissioning.

This post is a continuation of the posts in the Plant Information Management series of:
 “Handover to logistics and supply chain in capital projects”
“Plant Engineering meets Product Engineering in capital projects”
 “Plant Information Management - What to manage?”

Let’s jump in and follow the journey of the manufactured physical products as they move into installation and commissioning phases.
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Figure 1.
Provided that the information from the different structures and their context in relation to each other is kept, it is possible to trace perfectly what physical items should be installed where, corresponding to the tag requirements in the project (note: I’ve removed the connections from tag to EBOM in this figure for clarity).

We are now able to connect the information from tag: =AB.ACC01.IS01.VS04.EP03, the one in the safety classed area to the physical item with serial number S/N: AL11234-12-15 that contains the documentation proving that it is fit for purpose in a safety classed area.
As the other two tags are not in a safety classed area, and have no special requirements, any of the two physical pumps can be used to fulfill the tag requirements, however we still want full traceability for commissioning, operations & maintenance.
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Figure 2.
Since we now have a connection between the tag requirements and the physically installed individuals, we can commence with various commissioning tests and verify that what we actually installed works as intended in relation to what we designed (the plant system), and furthermore we can associate certificates, commissioning documentation and processes to the physical individuals.

The reason for this split between tag object and physical item object I’d like to come back to in a future post regarding operations and maintenance.

Bjorn Fidjeland

The header image used in this post is by Satori13 and purchased at dreamstime.com

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Handover to logistics and supply chain in capital projects

12/12/2016

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This post is a continuation of the post “Plant Engineering meets Product Engineering in capital projects” and “Plant Information Management - What to manage?”
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As the last post dwelled on how EPC’s and product companies are trying to promote re-use in very Engineer To Order (ETO) intensive projects, we will focus on the handover to supply chain and logistics in this post.
The relationship between the tag containing the project specific requirements, and the article or part containing the generic product design constitutes a project specific demand that supply chain and logistics should know about. If both the tag and the connected part is released, a “signal” is sent with information regarding both the tag’s requirements and the part’s requirements.
​An exception to this rule is typically Long Lead Items (LLI). I’ve seen this handled via a special process that allows transfer of the information to supply chain and logistics even if the specific tag has not been released.
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Figure 1.
As the project specific information regarding all three tags and the intended use of product design is sent to logistics and supply chain it is possible to distinguish what tags need special attention and what tags can be ordered “off the shelf”.

Let’s say that tag: =AB.ACC01.IS01.VS04.EP03 is in a safety classed area and the other two are not. Information in the purchase order for the safety classed tag must then contain information to the manufacturer that documentation regarding the manufacturing process must follow the produced individual that will be used to implement this specific tag, whereas the other two deliveries can have standard documentation.
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Figure 2.
Figure 2 depicts that all three manufactured products or physical items with serial numbers come from the same Engineering Bill Of Material, but that the individual with serial number S/N: AL11234-12-15 has some extra information attached.
This is because since it is to be used in a safety classed environment, proof must be produced from the manufacturer’s side that the product fulfills the safety class requirements given on the tag. This could for instance be X-Ray documentation that all welds are up to spec or that the alloy used has sufficient quality.
As you can see, If the information is kept as information structures with relationships between the different data sets detailing what context the different information is used in, it becomes possible to trace and manage it all in project specific processes.
There are some other very important information structures that I mentioned in the post “Plant Information Management - What to manage?” like the Sales BOM (similar to manufacturing industries Manufacturing BOM), the Supply BOM and warehouse management, however I would like to cover those in more detail later in later posts.
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For now let’s follow the journey of the manufactured products as they move into installation and commissioning.

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Figure 3.
Provided that the information from the different structures and their context in relation to each other is kept, it is possible to trace perfectly what physical items should be installed where, corresponding to the tag requirements in the project (note: I’ve removed the connections from tag to EBOM in this figure for clarity).

We are now able to connect the information from tag: =AB.ACC01.IS01.VS04.EP03, the one in the safety classed area, to the physical item with serial number S/N: AL11234-12-15 that contains the documentation proving that it is fit for purpose in a safety classed area.
As the other two tags are not in a safety classed area, and have no special requirements, any of the two physical pumps can be used to fulfill the tag requirements, however we still want full traceability for commissioning, operations & maintenance.
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Figure 4
Since we now have a connection between the tag requirements and the physically installed individuals, we can commence with various commissioning tests and verify that what we actually installed works as intended in relation to what we designed (the plant system), and furthermore we can associate certificates and commissioning documentation to the physical individuals.
The reason for this split between tag object and physical item object I’d like to come back to in a future post regarding operations and maintenance.

Bjorn Fidjeland

The header image used in this post is by Nostal6ie and purchased at dreamstime.com
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Plant Engineering meets Product Engineering in capital projects

9/30/2016

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This post is a follow up of “Plant Information Management - What to manage?”.

It focuses on the needed collaboration between Plant Engineering (highly project intensive) and Product Engineering which ideally should be “off the shelf” or at least Configure To Order (CTO), but in reality is more often than not, Engineer To Order (ETO) or one-offs.
More and more EPC’s (Engineering Procurement Construction companies), and product companies exposed to project intensive industries are focusing hard on ways to  re-use product designs from one project to the next or even internally in the same project through various forms of configuration and clever use of master data, see “Engineering Master Data - Why is it different?”.
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However, we will never get away from the fact that the product delivery in a capital project will always have to fulfill specific requirements from Plant Engineering, and especially in safety classed areas of the plant.
If you look at the blue object structure, it represents a consolidated view of multi-discipline plant engineering. The system might consist of several pumps, heat exchangers, sensors, instrumentation and pipes, but we are going to focus on a specific tag and it’s requirements, namely one of the pumps in the system.​
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At one point in the plant engineering process the design is deemed fit for project procurement to start investigating product designs that might fulfill the requirements stated in the plant system design.
If the plant design is made by an EPC that does not own any product companies, the representing product is typically a single article or part with associated preferred vendors/manufacturers who might be able to produce such a product or have it in stock. If the EPC does own product companies, the representing product might be a full product design. In other words a full Engineering Bill Of Material (EBOM) of the product.
 
This is where it becomes very interesting indeed because the product design (EBOM) is generic in nature. It represents a blueprint or mold if you will, used to produce many physical products or instances of the product design. The physical products typically have serial numbers, and you are able to touch them. However, due to requirements from the Owner/Operator, the EPC will very often dictate both project and tag specific documentation from the product company supplying to the project, which in turn often leads to replication of the product designs X number of times to achieve compliance with the documentation requirements in the project (Documentation For Installation and Operations).​
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So, even if it is exactly the same product design it ends up being copied each time there is a project specific delivery. This often happens even if let’s say 40 pumps are being supplied by the same vendor to the same project, as responses to the requirements on 40 different tags in the plant design……
Needless to say it becomes a lot of Engineering Bill Of Materials in order to comply with documentation requirements in capital projects. Even worse, for the product companies it becomes virtually impossible to determine exactly what they have delivered each time, since it is different Engineering Bills Of Materials all the time, yet 97% of the information might be the same. The standardized product has now become an Engineer To Order product.
So how is it possible to avoid this monstrous duplication of work?
More and more companies are looking into ways to make use of data structures used in different contexts. The contexts might be different deliveries to the same project or across multiple projects, but if one is able to identify and separate the generic information from what information that needs to be project specific it is also possible to facilitate re-use.​
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​The image above shows how a generic product design (EBOM) is able to fulfill three different project specific tags or functional locations in a plant. Naturally three physical instances or serial numbers must then be manufactured based on the generic product design, but since we have the link or relationship between the project specific requirements (the tags) and the generic (the EBOM), one can generate project specific data and documentation without making changes to the generic representation of the product (the EBOM).
This approach even enables the product company to identify and manufacture one of the pumps which happens to be in a safety classed area in the plant design according to regulatory requirements without having to make changes or duplicate the product design, however more on that next time.
 
Bjorn Fidjeland

The header image used in this post is by Nostal6ie and purchased at dreamstime.com
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