Digital Transformation in Action: Reinventing Pipeline Engineering and Design.

Digital Transformation in Action: Reinventing Pipeline Engineering and Design.

Come along to this month’s SPE Facilities Group learning event to discover how digital innovation, automation and cloud technologies are being used by engineering teams to deliver work faster, better and cheaper.

Automation in engineering doesn’t just speed up the process that you’re used to, it fundamentally redefines what’s possible. The project phases that precede a financial investment decision are broadly standardised, often limited to a high-level review of the scope, cost, schedule and risk issues and supported by a deep dive on a few critical topics. Designs are frozen, contracts are written and many of the outcomes are locked in early on the back of the initial effort that the project could afford.

Automation enables a different approach. Highly detailed system models can be tested in the early stages of a project to quantify issues, understand sensitivities and inform key decisions. A range of proposed solutions can be evaluated in full detail in an afternoon, then be revisited next week when new information becomes available. An automation-first strategy gives project teams the ability to improve decision confidence in the early stages of a project and react quickly to change once underway, both of which have a dramatic impact on project outcomes.

SEA has been using automated engineering to disrupt pipeline design and integrity management practises with their proprietary ICE Platform for the past five years, and will draw on their global experience to highlight the new approaches worth considering for today’s engineering challenges.

About the Presenter:
Nick is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer, 40under40 award winner and the Operations Manager at Subsea Engineering Associates. Nick earned degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Commerce from UWA and has since worked in the Perth subsea industry for a decade. Nick has led engineering teams in the development of technology-based solutions to subsea issues and development of in-house software packages and coordinates R&D efforts at Subsea Engineering Associates.