S08 ORME 3 2021 ABB Interview_Layout 1 06/05/2021 14:19 Page 28
Technology
Advancing autonomous
operations Ronan O’Sullivan, digital lead for ABB Energy Industries IMEA region, speaks to Oil Review Middle East about how digitalisation is shaping the post-COVID-19 recovery in the energy sector, and accelerating the drive towards more sustainable and autonomous operations. HERE CAN BE no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital transformation, driving the need for remote and automated operations and forcing companies to fundamentally adapt their working practices. ABB Energy Industries has had to adapt its operations in two key aspects, Ronan O’Sullivan explains. “One is the service aspect and how we take care of our existing customers. Our service models have had to adapt to difficulties in sending people to sites. We had to overcome that very quickly through some of our digital solutions to connect our customers in the field with our subject matter experts sitting remotely, or where customers themselves were unable to get to their sites, connecting a subject matter expert sitting in their headquarters or at home. So it has certainly accelerated all the remote connectivity to enable us to provide services for customers. “On the project side too, we’ve really had to adapt. Last year we launched Adaptive Execution, a project methodology leveraging years of experience which offers an optimised way of executing projects. So we incorporate our people, SMEs or an expert team that could be connected globally for a project, we look at the years of project execution, and have streamlined that into our adaptive execution methodology. “The other part of it involves making more use of our technologies, and making them more modular and more standard, so that we can deploy projects globally in a more efficient and effective way. “Last and not least, is looking at infrastructure as a catalyst, utilising cloud technology to have remote connectivity project execution on a cloud-based infrastructure, to allow that acceleration of project optimisation as a whole. “We have brought all these key areas together in our Adaptive Execution.” The uptake from the oil and gas industry has been huge, O’Sullivan comments, as with
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Image Credit : ABB Energy Industries
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Ronan O’Sullivan, digital lead for ABB Energy Industries IMEA region.
There’s a big acceleration around utilising data to run operations more efficiently.” the current constraints, customers have to use what they currently have in a better way to run their businesses.
Utilising data “What they have today is data, and the possibility of us connecting remotely. So there’s a big acceleration around utilising data in order to run operations more efficiently, and really start moving the industry towards autonomous operations.
“How are we’re helping with that? We’ve got various tools we can utilise from a data perspective, but what’s really helped us focus is our launch last year of our ABB Ability Genius platform. That allows our customers to gather data from operational technology, IT and engineering technology, bring that together, contextualise it and be able to drive further value out of that data. That’s been a big area of discussion for our customers. “There’s also the data gathering part, and that’s where we’ve launched our Edgenius Operations Data Manager, which can take data from our various plants in a secure and efficient manner to a central location, whether that’s a cloud or an on-premise data centre. We’re seeing a big uptake on this, from data collection to data gathering, contextualisation and integration, and then applying our machine learning and even our advanced analytics and AI.
