EqHub, the Norwegian oil country equipment portal was launched last year as an OLF initiative, owned by EPIM with support from Achilles, Sharecat Solutions, PCA and Det Norske Veritas. The portal is an information repository for operators and suppliers providing pre-qualified, classified and quality assured information. Speaking at the recent EqHub conference in Stavanger, Ida Kastrud described implementing EqHub on Total Norge’s Hild North Sea development. Hild is an innovative engineering project with remote operations and real time equipment diagnostics in support of condition-based maintenance. Total is using a ‘simple, modular and standardized’ design approach and a ‘replace offshore, repair onshore’ strategy that has allowed it to minimize offshore manning. Total uses EqHub as a gateway to its vendors and has included compliance in its contracts. Implementation was challenging—particularly mapping to Total’s internal specifications and systems. But Kastrud reports that the benefits of standard, quality-controlled information available to all stakeholders are a win-win for manufacturers, vendors and the operator.
CIO Jann Kåre Slettebakk provided insights as to how EqHub has been incorporated into Aker Engineering’s vision for standard information from its suppliers for ingestion by engineering design tools. While many suppliers have understood the benefits and joined the initiative, challenges remain with package suppliers using third party equipment from vendors with limited Norwegian involvement. The benefits of a ‘proper’ EqHub implementation include pre-validated contract documentation, web access with professional IT support, timely availability of documentation with reduced risk of delayed projects and more time available for design.
Nils Sandsmark reported on POSC/Caesar’s attempts to align the current EqHub implementation which uses ShareCat’s technology with the ISO 15926 reference data library. The mapping was successfully concluded with limited resources. Despite being well received by Bechtel and Emerson, the project failed to achieve buy-in from the EqHub membership. This contrasts with the ‘real progress’ made by the Fiatech JORD project which recently has gone live with an equipment triple store endpoint on www.oilit.com/links/1111_34. A demonstrator developed for the North West Redwater Partnership will be on show at the upcoming Digital Plant conference in Houston. Oil IT Journal will be there! More on EqHub from www.oilit.com/links/1111_55.
© Oil IT Journal - all rights reserved.