The Digital Twin Convergence

Digital twin is the buzzword of recent times. For a process plant – categorized under the Oil / Gas/ Process/ Power vertical - a #digitaltwin platform would mean that a 3D replica of the plant is available along with all related data, attributes, documents, drawings, data sheets, as well as asset health monitoring results in order to take on predictive maintenance actions. In essence, the digital twin is a single point of truth platform. This blog is focused on three companies that help the customer converge eventually to a Digital Twin platform.

Solution # 1-Detect Technologies

Their core development is around real time asset Integrity monitoring, people integrity monitoring, safety monitoring & progress monitoring.

GUMPS their flagship product is deployed for inline monitoring of piping systems over a long range and at extreme temperatures. The principle being guided ultrasonic waves are passed along the length of the pipe and these waves scan the pipe and capture the signature of defects growing in the piping. The good news is that for interpreting the results you don’t need an NDE (Non-Destructive Evaluation) expert. The solution has in-built algorithms that interpret the wave patters over a period of time “predicting” build-up of corrosion and cross-sectional area loss and pinpointing target points along the length of the pipe where preventive maintenance action need to be focussed.

The second solution is NOCTUA, for real time asset inspection. Data acquisition can be done using UAVs/ Fixed camera footage. NOCTUA is built on AI/ML/CV algorithms which are trained on various types of detects. Thus, the system labels the defects and provides automated insights along with observations and recommendations. All this is brought out on a cloud – based dashboard, deployed on a SaaS model.

The next solution and also the one that has seen the most traction in recent times, T-PULSE, is on safety & progress monitoring which is another key area where companies put in relentless efforts to reduce incidents, reduce down time and improve productivity. This solution is also built with an AI/ML based algorithm that is pre-trained on all categories of violations, that are categorized as per IOGP standards. The system labels safety violations and provides automated insights along with observations and recommendation. All this is brought out on a cloud – based dashboard, deployed on a SaaS model.

All the solutions mentioned above work to achieve a common goal which is – To reduce plant down time, predict maintenance, avoid emergency shutdowns, improve productivity and thereby reduce costs. In these days of growing uncertainty, the most viable solutions in the market are the ones that help execute capital projects at reduced costs, where even a small percentage improvement in productivity would provide the customers their “Return on investment”.

Solution # 2 – Intelligent Project Solutions

 This company has built technology that automates digitization of data. The current focus is on P&IDs & Data sheets and these are the most important documents for a process plant. Data sheets include Instrument Data sheets, Equipment Data sheets, Vendor Data sheets etc. The IPS product, namely iDrawings, is built on AI / ML algorithms that are trained on symbology and legends specific to the customer, thereby helping migrate PDFs to intelligent drawings within a much shorter time frame as compared to manual redraw. The other product iDocuments, also built on AI/ML technology, works on Datasheets that are in the PDF format and helps migrate them to a template based excel format which can further be easily imported to a system of choice. The main benefits of these solutions are

• to harness data and information locked in dumb scans and PDFs,
• re-use legacy data without the need to spend huge manhours recreating the same, thereby saving on time and efforts which leads to increased productivity and huge savings in costs. Typically, the kind of productivity improvements that you can see is around 50%.

These products are the need of the hour because of the rampant implementation of the Industry 4.0 recommendations which mandates that all data have to be in digital format and intelligent. IPS products are deployed on cloud on a SaaS model.

IPS is also actively working with global partners such as CAXperts, to create a “Cost effective” Digital Twin where, for an existing operating plant it may be just enough to bring it in a laser scan, identify assets that need modification / change / revamp, tag the assets and add attributes. In this whole process, tagging and adding attributes is by far the most time consuming, however IPS has a way of automating this process thus providing an efficient way of creating a cost-effective Digital Twin.

Solution # 3 – CAXperts GmbH

 With the predictive maintenance and digitization pieces in place, a solution such as CAXperts’ UPV completes the Digital Twin story.

The UniversalPlantViewer is designed to enhance collaboration and optimise your entire plant lifecycle. A complete digital model with 3D model, P&IDs, LaserScans, drawings documents, data – all linked together and easily accessible to every stakeholder, anywhere and on all devices.

The two technologies mentioned above converge on to the CAXperts’ flagship offering Universal Plant Viewer (UPV) that can bring the 3D plant model, laser scans, associated drawings, documents and data all together on a thin client web-based platform. UPV users will definitely see the advantage of integrating the “Asset inspection results" from Detect Technologies on the UPV platform and the specific users having their data locked in Silos / Dumb scans can also bring in those into the UPV model in an automated way with IPS technology, thus making the UPV model data rich and data centric.

In its latest version UPV has the capability of integrating with a PDF P&ID, however the current integration is only at a text level, which means texts and tags on the PDF P&ID are mapped and linked to the 3D in UPV. Here is where IPS comes into the picture with its AI based technology -iDrawings- to recognize symbols and legends in a PDF P&ID. Once iDrawings is integrated with UPV, this platform can have both the intelligence of the symbols in 2D as well as in 3D, thereby obviating the need for the plant owner to maintain P&ID data in authoring tools like SPPID. This also satisfies the primary requirements of the plant owner which is to access / view / search data / view inspection results for taking maintenance actions, all possible now in the single point of truth digital platform – Universal Plant Viewer.

Summary

 The Digital Twin convergence ties the three companies together and the story of a single point of truth digital twin is here and now.