We are at a crucial moment in history. A shift from oil and gas to hydrogen is on the horizon. Hydrogen is cleaner and more sustainable. For a century, oil and gas have driven industries. These include fertilizers, chemicals, and steel. However, we must urgently combat climate change. We need to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and we need to rebuild the carbon-based economy on a new foundation in 26 years. So, we must start switching our energy to hydrogen.
This huge task needs a group effort. It demands not just commitment but also innovation. We need to be more efficient and smarter in our actions; otherwise there will not be enough time and money. The transition’s success lies on our infrastructure’s backbone—pipelines. They must meet high standards for quality and safety.
In this transformative period, almost all of these projects will use pipelines. Pipelines will play a critical role. Pipes have high quality and traceability requirements that are challenging. PipeCloud offers a solution.
But first, let’s begin with the basics.
What is Traceability and why is it challenging?
In manufacturing, precision and accountability are crucial. Tracking a product’s life from raw materials to completion is vital. This involves knowing material sources, welding details, checking for defects, and ensuring accurate documentation. Switching from manual to digital platforms like PipeCloud is a big step.
Several common things to consider when thinking what needs to be traced are:
- Heatnumber It is important to know the origin of the raw material: all pipes, flanges, curves and fittings must be traceable to the source of the alloy.
- Welding traceability requires information on who welded, when, with what qualifications, using what method and with what filler material (e.g. filler wire with its own batch number).
- NDT inspection data such as X-ray inspection, is a key part of quality assurance in industry.
- As-built compared to as-designed. Does the current pipe assembly resemble the specifications in the engineer’s original blueprints?
In steel and tubular product manufacturing, tracking heat numbers is key. By knowing the raw material’s source, we can trace pipes and fittings back to their alloys. PipeCloud makes this easy. Workers use tablets to mark each product’s heat numbers. This ensures accuracy and traceability, cutting manual errors. It also tackles ERP system challenges, boosting efficiency and communication.
Ensuring the traceability of welding requires detailed record-keeping. Records must include the welder’s identity and the methods and materials used. Traditionally, this has been a paper-based, error-prone process. PipeCloud revolutionizes this. It lets welders log details from their workstations. This greatly reduces errors and improves efficiency and traceability.
Non-destructive testing (NDT) like X-ray inspections plays a crucial role in industry quality assurance. With advancements, AI now aids in analyzing these tests. It does this alongside methods like penetration and pressure tests. Traditionally, NDT inspectors manually recorded data, a slow and error-prone process. PipeCloud introduces an automated system. It enhances efficiency and accuracy by filling forms with existing data. It streamlines inspections and uploads results. This system significantly improves the reliability of inspection documentation.
As-built documentation is crucial for the final project phase. It captures actual construction details, accounting for design stage changes. Traditional methods, involving manual, error-prone paper annotations, are now replaced by PipeCloud. This digital solution allows direct system entries. It eliminates paper and reduces errors. This improves documentation speed, accuracy, and accessibility.
Traditionally, much of this traceability data is on paper records. Workers, engineers, and inspectors provide it. Then, they give this documentation to an office. There, staff manually enter it into a computer database. However, there are several reasons why this approach is sub-optimal.
As PipeCloud’s CEO Jarno Soinila explains, “They also need a lot of drawings, certificates, and inspection protocols on top of that database. These files must be attached and compiled into a complete package. It must meet the specific requirements of each case.””
The extra documents come from many places. They may be hard to add to a database or record. Some records are just Excel spreadsheets.
The problems with manual data collection and data entry are several:
- Entries can be missed or rendered illegible when pen and paper are used.
- Entries can be wrongly transcribed by the individual charged with data entry.
- Additional documentation, photographs and certificates may be missing.
- Data sources are fragmented and may not be properly reconciled.
- The data entry process is labour-intensive, time-consuming, and tedious.
The last point is especially important. Soinila believes that using a fully digital, data-rich method can save many clients days of work. In his words, he said, “We can eliminate several days of work. And it’s that kind of work that nobody enjoys doing because it’s quite repetitive.”
Inspectors and workers can input data into smart devices. This data is instantly uploaded to the database. It is immediately accessible to those with access protocols.
How does PipeCloud solve the traceability problem?
PipeCloud is the antithesis of paper-based manual data handling. It is a platform providing a full overview of the manufactured pipeline. Workers use devices on their workstations. They use them to input information directly into a central, cloud database.
As Soinila explains, “The data can be correct at a different level when entered with a pro user interface into the database.” So manual typos and other mistakes can be tackled when entering the data.”
The system also captures valuable metadata about the person entering the information. It also notes when the inspection happened. Also, the time PipeCloud saves can be used to ensure data is complete. It can also account for industrial engineering realities. For example, the difference between blueprint pipe layouts and the as-built reality.
How have clients benefited from adopting this approach?
Many industries could benefit from this data-driven, cloud-based approach to pipeline traceability. They are from a range of different industries. For example, electric battery manufacturers, maritime transport companies, and methanol fuel producers and distributors. For each client, the safety benefits, as well as the efficiency gains of going digital, makes PipeCloud an easy choice.
Soinila gives an example: “Our customer Ardor, from Finland, has been building the LNG (liquefied natural gas) piping for the Icon of the Seas for Royal Caribbean cruise line. And that liquefied natural gas system requires 100 % traceability. All the welds, all the heat numbers, all the NDT inspections.”
Green fuel producers are at the forefront of innovation in methanol, biofuel, and liquid hydrogen supply. Their business model requires them to account for every stage in making and distributing a product. This is to keep their vital green credentials. PipeCloud helps them do just that by providing paperless, data-driven performance analytics
The consequences are clear. Inspections were not done right. Recent gas pipeline disasters showed this. Clients rightly demand perfection in their inspections. They know any failings could make headline news. PipeCloud helps reduce the chance of such calamity to minute proportions.
What other innovations are in the pipeline?
Systems like PipeCloud can do much more than store data. They can do complex analytics and help make 3D system renders.
This is another of the system’s unique advantages. It gives customers traceability data of the pipelines. This includes spatial coordinates for the “digital twin”. The model is imported into PipeCloud. The location data links the traceability data to its coordinates in the digital duplicate. This enables detailed and accurate tracking and documentation. It happens throughout the life of the pipeline. It improves project management, maintenance, and future planning.
Although it has not yet been rolled out to clients, this advanced feature, says Soinila, will allow clients to “distribute traceability data all the way to the digital twin on the accuracy of individual welds or components.”
The digital twin becomes the “canary in the coal mine.” It shows that systems are running well and safely. Or, it gives early warnings when they are not.
Soinila says, “these use cases are possible when you have a system that knows all that has been created during engineering and fabrication.” So that is an opportunity that we are looking forward to.”
What are the top benefits of digital inspection and data analytics?
Here are the five main benefits of adopting a paperless inspection protocol:
- Enhanced efficiency in data gathering, with fewer errors.
- A speedier process, with manual data entry eliminated.
- Complete and up-to-date incorporation of as-built data, in addition to build schematics.
- Potential to supply data to a “digital twin” of the plant, pipeline, or vessel.
- Instantly available inspection records, delivered straight to the cloud.
With PipeCloud, clients, inspectors, and engineers can rest easy. They know they have a joined-up, complete view of their pipelines. Problem-solving becomes a straightforward process.
Let’s leave the final word to PipeCloud’s CEO. “Transparency and auditability are much higher when you can go into the database with the timestamp and the user ID. Then, you can see who put in this data and when. Instead of this manual process where you have pieces of paper travelling, at some time after the actual step in production was performed, into Office and then somebody types it into Excel, the quality of the data is on a totally different level.”
The future for PipeCloud seems bright, with hundreds of potential applications to explore.