ARC WHITE PAPER By ARC Advisory Group JUNE 18, 2013 AVEVA NET Accesses and Manages the Digital Asset Executive Overview... 3 Project Risk: Inaccessible, Unreliable Information... 4 AVEVA NET Focuses on the Business Value of the Digital Asset... 6 Conclusions... 9 VISION, EXPERIENCE, ANSWERS FOR INDUSTRY
As-Designed Digital Information Hub As-Built As-Operated AVEVA NET Enables Access to All Plant Lifecycle Information The way to get information into the DIH: AVEVA NET Gateways 2D 3D Docs The flexible repository of associated information, the unified information model: AVEVA NET Workhub The configurable validation process to check incoming information against a data standard: AVEVA NET GateKeeper The way for a user to view the information in the DIH: AVEVA NET Dashboard AVEVA NET Supports the Creation of a Digital Information Hub 2 Copyright ARC Advisory Group ARCweb.com
Executive Overview Global demand for new process plants, power plants and infrastructure is increasing steadily with the growth of regional economies and the business and industrial requirements that accompany this growth. Along with this demand, comes increased risk for new projects that tend to be larger and more complex, making it more difficult to meet time and cost constraints, and deliver plants that can operate with maximum efficiency and safety. One of the single most significant issues associated with projects is the lack of accurate, complete, and timely information that can add substantial project and operational risk in terms of cost, time, and safety. EPCs, project managers, and owner-operators all concur that access to information throughout all phases of construction project is critical to meeting schedule and cost goals. According to ARC research in the Power and Process sector information management and access is equally important to EPCs and owner-operators. Nearly all of the owner-operators want information turned over in a form that they can import into asset management/maintenance management systems that they use to operate and maintain the facility. This is often not a case of information that does not exist, but rather the impact of project and operational information that is unreliable, inaccessible, and incompatible. The challenge of having the right information at the right time is an issue that impacts all stakeholders across the plant design and operation lifecycles for designers and engineers, One of the single most significant EPCs, and owner-operators. issues associated with projects is the lack of accurate, complete, Businesses in the power, process, and AEC sectors and timely information that can add substantial risk to the project typically waste a significant amount of time and in terms of cost, time, and safety. money attempting to retrieve and re-create existing data. In the design phase of a project, engineers routinely spend up to half of their time searching for existing design files and models, as well as other project information. On the operations side, one of the biggest revenues losses is the result of operators not having access to critical information which can cause downtime and production delays. Today s knowledge workers cannot make accurate critical decisions and react effectively to unplanned events without access to all operational and asset information. Copyright ARC Advisory Group ARCweb.com 3
In a typical plant environment operational and asset information resides in multiple systems, is maintained by different applications, and comes in a variety of formats. One of fundamental concepts of engineering design is reuse. An inefficient flow of information between people, systems, and applications significantly obstructs efficient reuse for both project and operational plant lifecycles. AVEVA understands that information is the life-blood of their customers, and offers AVEVA NET to address the challenges of information accessibility, providing a Digital Information Hub (DIH) for the engineering information lifecycle. Project Risk: Inaccessible, Unreliable Information It is not uncommon to see as much as 15 percent of up-front project costs accrued in the requirements phase of a major capital project. A significant portion of these early phase projects costs can be attributed directly to the time and effort expended by engineering and project planners to find and access existing design and build information from the many different and disparate sources that are critical to the project. Additionally, the challenge for these early project phase stakeholders is not only locating and accessing information, but obtaining quality information that is current, accurate, and relevant to the project. ARC research in the area of Power and Process project management, including interviews with leading EPCs has indicated that projects are getting very large both in scope and cost. These projects typically have high proposal costs due to the lack of access to up-front information, and EPCs are becoming increasingly selective of projects to reduce risk. EPCs will reduce risk to a certain degree by adopting technical innovation such as information management solutions over pure cost cutting, and will seek to be become more profitable through increased use of these tools. This initial requirements phase activity is often referred to as project prework. Providing accurate and complete pre-work information is essential to overall project success in terms of cost, scheduling, allocating resources, and most importantly, meeting project requirements and objectives. An efficient and productive pre-work phase is incumbent upon having access to 4 Copyright ARC Advisory Group ARCweb.com
the right information, for the right person, and at the right time. Moreover, the goal of the project manager is to reduce the up-front cost and time generally associated with the requirements phase. Being able to access and aggregate the necessary information in order to move An efficient and productive prework phase is incumbent upon through the requirements phase of a project efficiently while meeting functional design and build criteria helps to having access to the right reduce these up-front costs. information, for the right person, and at the right time. Equally important as access to information is having quality information that satisfies the design, build and overall project requirements. Providing quality information means having the latest engineering models and design information that has been managed throughout the engineering change and version control process. It also means delivering asset information from projects with similar requirements that provide engineers with reusable models, build data, and specifications. Meeting the Requirements for Operations and Maintenance At the most basic level a plant or any piece of equipment within the plant becomes an operational asset when the owner-operator places it into service. At handover the owner-operator becomes responsible for operating, maintaining, and sustaining these assets. At this point, the owner-operator needs a range of support from EPCs, contractors, and the OEM equipment suppliers to be able to effectively manage the plant. During the handover of a typical plant project an EPC provides to the owner-operator a wide range of electronic and paper documentation in various formats covering the plant, process layout, design and basic equipment specifications. To meet business objectives for production, quality, safety, environmental performance, and profitability, personnel need to have access to all aspects of plant operations. This includes everything from the physical infrastructure to all the equipment installed in the plant. The question remains, how can this diverse range of information be made available to the owneroperators, ideally in a centralized, transparent manner? All of this presents some very real challenges for the EPC that must design and build the plant, and the owner-operator that operates and maintains the plant once the handover process is complete. Fundamentally, access to asset information is equally important to each stakeholder in the lifecycle, whether it s the EPC that needs access to information from multiple design applications, or the owner-operator that needs access to equipment drawings and service bulletins. The challenges are common to all stakeholders. Copyright ARC Advisory Group ARCweb.com 5
Asset information usually resides in multiple systems. Design models and other engineering information are maintained across a variety of applications and formats where interoperability can present major issues that often results in the inefficient flow of information between people, systems, and applications. As a project progresses across the plant lifecycle the number of stakeholders involved in the process increases dramatically and the scope of the information required must become part of a digital collaborative environment that is shared and exchanged by multiple organizations across the project. Not only must historical and newly created information be accessible, but it must be shared in real time across all processes in the lifecycle. This follows AVEVA s basic vision that for every physical asset there should be a digital asset that reflects the active state of the as-built environment. AVEVA NET Focuses on the Business Value of the Digital Asset In order to address the information challenges facing all of the stakeholders across the plant lifecycle, the information in its entirety should be regarded as a digital asset that represents all of the physical assets that must be designed, operated, and managed. In essence, the digital asset becomes just as valuable as the physical asset. It represents all stakeholders involved in the lifecycle of the plant, making it easier to discover, access, exchange, and change the digital asset that is being designed, built and operated. This provides a clear business value for all the players in the plant lifecycle process. These benefits include: More informed decision making through access to reliable, quality data More efficient collaboration for project information Faster and more efficient handover process to owner-operators Reduced information discovery time through intelligent search This is where AVEVA NET comes into the picture. The basic concept of AVEVA NET is to capture all of the information regardless of format or 6 Copyright ARC Advisory Group ARCweb.com
source and make it available to support the lifecycle process from a single, open DIH platform. The reality in today s plant lifecycle environment is that no one vendor can offer a complete solution to EPCs and owner-operator for every domain and discipline in the lifecycle. This means that it s necessary for users to seek out the best available tools and applications to fit their needs. The AVEVA NET approach allows users to discover all the information used in today s very heterogeneous environment. AVEVA NET allows users to search and validate their engineering information assets at any phase in the plant lifecycle through the identification of assets they know and the discovery of what they don t know. AVEVA NET Helps to Meet the Vision of an Open Digital Information Hub A DIH concept provides a central repository to access lifecycle information from any source and AVEVA NET plays a major role in achieving this vision in combination with other discipline specific and information engineering applications. The architecture of AVEVA NET is designed to provide the open flexibility demanded by the technically complex reality of a plant environment that is serving the diverse needs of many stakeholders. AVEVA NET Gateways function as the way to get information into the AVEVA NET repository. Gateways are the link between information sources such 3D model and 2D drawing files of various formats, structured and unstructured documents, and the output from any number of third party applications, and the AVEVA NET Workhub. Working to ensure that information coming into the AVEVA NET environments is quality, useable, and valid is the AVEVA NET Gatekeeper, which functions as a configurable validation process to check all incoming information against a data standard. Once information is validated and standardized the user is able to access and view the information through the AVEVA NET Dashboard providing the required project and operational information to make informed decisions. Each of the functional components of the AVEVA NET product family provides a range of specific capabilities and business benefits. The AVEVA NET Gateways, aside from functioning as the link between information sources and the AVEVA NET Workhub, provides connectivity, meaning and context to the user s information assets. EPCs can realize business benefits through more efficient access to project information, reduced handover Copyright ARC Advisory Group ARCweb.com 7
and commissioning costs, and improved overall project collaboration. For the owner-operator there are improved operations and safety efficiencies, increased plant uptime, assistance in meeting regulatory compliance, and reduced maintenance and training costs. The AVEVA NET Workhub is primarily a secure, centralized repository for information and connectivity, but it also offers users an environment to aggregate, contextualize, and cross-reference data and documents from any source. The AVEVA NET Dashboard is a web-based tool that allows users to visualize and collaborate on asset data and documents from a multitude of source applications through in a single intuitive interface. The AVEVA NET Workhub and Dashboard also provide significant business benefits for stakeholders across the plant lifecycle. This collaborative environment allows engineers and designers to use a structured and intelligent process to discover, view, and share a wide range of project information that enables a much better informed decision making process. AVEVA NET Provides Operational Integrity across the Asset Lifecycle Interoperability of design data and asset information is essential to not only the EPC but also to the operations and maintenance domains of the plant lifecycle and the owner-operators that depend on this information to operate their facilities. In the course of a typical hand-over from EPC to owneroperator asset information can come in many forms, formats, with many complex linkages, and many users with specific roles. This information can originate from different design systems and involve multiple models, documents, drawings, and data organized in all manner of lists, files, databases, and proprietary formats. This presents a significant challenge to all stakeholders across the plant lifecycle, but especially to those that need this information to operate and maintain their facility. It is clear that AVEVA NET addresses many of the challenges facing engineers, designers, and construction contractors in the design and build phases for major capital projects. Discovering and accessing essential information from the pre-work phase through detail design and construction represents significant business value. However, once the handover phase of the project is complete and the plant becomes operational, the owneroperator must have access to much of the same information that the EPC needed during the design and build phase of their project. One of the major benefits of AVEVA NET is that it continues to provide access to the vital 8 Copyright ARC Advisory Group ARCweb.com
operational information that ensures operational integrity for the long-term plant lifecycle. AVEVA NET s major benefit to the operations phase of the plant lifecycle is that it helps to facilitate Operational Integrity Management (OIM), which is a broader initiative in place across most owner-operators to improve the effectiveness of all their information sharing. OIM encompasses both project performance management and asset performance management where the integrated project execution and handover and commissioning phases transition to the operations readiness, operations and maintenance, and inplant engineering phases. Thus, AVEVA s Digital Information Hub concept supports the operations and asset management domains of the plant lifecycle the same way it supports the design/build domains. From the perspective of the owner-operator this means that AVEVA NET can provide access to vital asset information to support operations, maintenance, and reliability. AVEVA is able to support the goals and objectives of more effective operations by delivery a number of key capabilities: Full integration of design, engineering, materials, procurement, and maintenance information, Maintenance, Materials Management and Procurement Optimized management of physical assets to reduce through life costs A platform for connecting people, processes, and assets A holistic view of plants asset base that enables managers to control their operations for quality, safety, and efficiency In essence, AVEVA NET enables the full integration of digital assets into the operations, maintenance, and reliability environment of the plant. Conclusions Major projects across the power, process, and AEC industries are becoming significantly larger, more complex, and more costly. This impacts all the players across the project and operational lifecycle, EPCs, equipment OEMs, and owner-operators. Vital to all of these stakeholders is access to quality and reliable information at all phases of the project, as EPCs, project Copyright ARC Advisory Group ARCweb.com 9
managers, and owner-operators all concur that access to One of the most effective ways information throughout all phases of construction project is to deal with today s large critical to meeting schedule and cost goals. project challenges and risks is simply to have access to all Dealing with increasing complexity while trying to contain quality and reliable information project schedules, resources, and cost, is the challenge facing all companies in these industries. They must find ways required to drive the project. to mitigate the significant risk inherent in major capital projects and long-term operations. EPCs will reduce risk by adopting technical innovation such as information management solutions over pure cost cutting, and will seek to be become more profitable through increased use of these tools. One of the most effective ways to deal with these challenges is to simply have access to all quality and reliable information required to drive forward projects and operations throughout the entire plant lifecycle. ARC research has shown that information management and access is equally important to EPCs and owner-operators, and AVEVA NET directly addresses this with a comprehensive information platform that supports the full extent of the plant lifecycle for EPCs and owner-operators. Clearly, all of the owner-operators want information turned over in a form that they can import into asset management/maintenance management systems used to operate and maintain the facility. Moreover, the open and flexible AVEVA NET environment provides a platform that enables users to leverage the business value of all their digital assets. Access to the right information at the right time is helping companies make informed and timely decisions that improves the quality of their deliverables and reduces project and operational risk. 10 Copyright ARC Advisory Group ARCweb.com
Analyst: Dick Slansky Editor: Paul Miller Acronym Reference: For a complete list of industry acronyms, refer to our web page at www.arcweb.com/research/industryterms/ ALM Asset Lifecycle Management API Application Program Interface CAD Computer Aided Design CRM Customer Relationship Management EAM Enterprise Asset Management EPC Engineering Procurement & Construction ERP Enterprise Resource Planning HMI Human Machine Interface IT Information Technology MIS Management Information System OIM Operational Integrity Management P&ID Piping & Instrumentation Diagram PLM Product Lifecycle Management ROA Return on Assets Founded in 1986, ARC Advisory Group is the leading research and advisory firm for industry. Our coverage of technology from business systems to product and asset lifecycle management, supply chain management, operations management, and automation systems makes us the go-to firm for business and IT executives around the world. For the complex business issues facing organizations today, our analysts have the industry knowledge and first-hand experience to help our clients find the best answers. All information in this report is proprietary to and copyrighted by ARC. No part of it may be reproduced without prior permission from ARC. This research has been sponsored in part by AVEVA. However, the opinions expressed by ARC in this paper are based on ARC's independent analysis. You can take advantage of ARC's extensive ongoing research plus experience of our staff members through our Advisory Services. ARC s Advisory Services are specifically designed for executives responsible for developing strategies and directions for their organizations. For membership information, please call, fax, or write to: ARC Advisory Group, Three Allied Drive, Dedham, MA 02026 USA Tel: 781-471-1000, Fax: 781-394-0094 Visit our web pages at www.arcweb.com Copyright ARC Advisory Group ARCweb.com 11
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