The digital oil field concept provides a useful model for how users in any industry can take data from the field or plant floor all the way to enterprise systems, presenting it to a variety of users in a way consistent with their job functions.
Picture credit: Bersin by Deloitte
Wonderware
HMI/ SCADA, System Platform and other Invensys software applications are
being integrated to create the digital oil field, supplying maintenance,
engineering, compliance and other departments with real-time data, polled data,
alarms, workflow triggers, and even forms to make management of operations more
efficient.
Invensys
is integrating its Wonderware Workflow and Intelligence software with System
Platform software to enable this . “We can use Workflow and Intelligence to
bridge gaps between people and processes,” says Abdy Jalilvand, North American
upstream business manager for Invensys. “Shell uses the concept of ‘bringing
work to the workers.’ We want to bring summaries to people in various
departments to make sure their asset data, for example, is being collected,
monitored, reported and acted upon.”
Jalilvand
spoke at the Invensys Software Conference along with Paul James, an Invensys
principal solution architect for upstream oil/gas, and Joe Hens, vice president
of system integrator IPACT, an expert on creating digital workflows. The three
discussed integrating System Platform, Wonderware Workflow and remote asset
management to leverage data already being collected to eliminate manual
processes and associated delays in work order requests.
To
better understand the scope of how this works, James says to consider an
oilfield setting, where many assets are generating data. “Of course, there’s
the drilling asset and production asset, but there are also simple assets:
chart recorders, tank level gauges and other such devices from which data is
collected and sent to the SCADA system,” he says. In addition, GPS-based
devices are tracking generator use location and how long it’s been
running. Smart flowmeters, used as sales meters, typically have a small
amount of I/O connected to a radio. Other communication assets track power and
substation data, water/wastewater data, including frac water management,
environmental air/water quality, meteorological data and more.
Each
of these assets has an identity—meta data including information about location
or the operator/technician assigned to that asset. “Every asset also has I/O,
and I/O history matched with meta data is valuable to the end user,” says James.
Data
from simple assets may go into a static database, while assets with large
amounts of I/O go into a real-time database or historian. “If the SCADA system
is already connected to the database or historian, you can make use of the data
and use the SCADA system as a common interface,” says James.
As
an example, consider a work order request from the field that starts with the
standard well management screen on the SCADA
system. One click sends the work order information directly into the asset
management system, as well as into maintenance reports and handheld devices for
assignment and eventual execution. The same data could also go into a Safety
Asset Summary Report.
“What’s
different about this kind of transfer is that it can be initiated from the field
while the operator is at the asset,” says James. “Traditionally the field
worker would enter the information on a notepad and the next time he’s in the
office he would pass it off to the maintenance department.”
Notes
and pictures can be now be uploaded and attached to the work order from the
field. The system can also add the GPS location of assets and people so that
supervisors can assign resources that are closest.
“The
thing that is tricky [for oilfield operations] is Internet connectivity; so
we’re looking at SMS messaging rather than 3G/4G connectivity to make
assignments,” says James.
Hens
says the same interface can also have button added that links to a document
management system. It can show a list of all the documents available for the
asset, and can assign and launch safe work permits.
Having
proven workflow’s capabilities in the oilfield environment, it’s easy to see
the kind of value it could bring to any operations with distributed data
sources and mobile workers. “Workflow is a toolkit,” Hens says, “that can bring
automated document management and asset management capabilities to small and
medium companies that still rely on manual processes.”
Source: Automation
World
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