Digital twin technology promotes safety, reduces costs
According to Greg Withers, projects modernization and transformation director for BP, the advantages for companies introducing digital twin technology to their organizations are myriad.
"The digital twin enables realistic simulation and easy access to all information, and in one place," Withers said. "It enables planning, remote operations, monitoring and support which would traditionally require personnel to be physically [at], or at least very near, the site."
Speaking in a panel session at PerspECCtives, the annual ECC Conference, Withers further explained that the digital twin allows the characteristics and behaviors of the system to be investigated in situations where it's not possible, practical or even safe to do so.
"This can lead to reducing site incidents, and reducing the risk to our personnel," he said.
In addition to enhancing safety, the digital twin enables cost reductions, and grows reliability throughout the asset's lifecycle, Withers said.
"Maintenance routines can be optimized and predicted via live data directly from each piece of equipment," he continued. "A digital twin can enable a lean and efficient organization by removing some of the manual, tedious tasks and providing technical support, allowing the workforce to focus on the asset operations and the real value-adding activities."
The key to success in utilizing the digital twin, Withers said, is having a clear strategy up front, knowing what you want from each phase of the asset's lifecycle and starting with the end in mind.
"To be successful, you must engage with all stakeholders early to yield the full benefit of the digital twin's mission," he said, adding that the strategy "must look well beyond just the 3-D design model, the initial project design and build phase" to visualize and manage data in the physical world.
Paying for itself
Joining Withers on the panel, Jim Purvis, vice president of operations for Worley Digital, said implementation of the digital twin goes beyond promoting safety by preventing incidents. It also provides solid financial benefits.
Withers explained the digital twin could accrue value during the EPC phase and operations, specifically by reducing the number of people required to run the facility.
"The digital twin can definitely influence the number of people who need to be at the site versus at the home office," he said. "When we look at the complex industries that we have, those savings can be substantial. A small change in the operating hours per year can accrue quite a large savings."
It is possible for the digital twin, Purvis added, to increase the operational efficiency in the uptime of a facility as well as in the maintenance area, providing even more opportunities to accrue value.
Reducing cost within the EPC phase "depends on your starting point," Purvis noted. "If you are a very mature project organization and you already have things like detailed work estimates 100-percent lined out and every project is super successful, then perhaps the margin you have to save is smaller. But if you're an average industry player where you're getting some AWP (advanced work packaging), there is probably a reasonable amount of EPC savings that can come from that."
Purvis shared an example of the cost savings provided by digital twin technology.
"In one case, a customer challenged us and said, 'We're interested in the digital twin for operations, but you need to save enough money during the EPC phase so that you'll pay for that extra effort to create it and we get it into operations at an almost net-zero cost,'" he said. "As we were doing that project, we maintained a register and during the EPC phase we identified things like moving data into commissioning, and moving data into construction."
This approach created significant savings for the customer, Purvis said.
Adam Douglas, project manager of engineering for KBR, moderated the discussion.
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