Latest generation oil production systems developed on collaborative engineering IT

PLM (product lifecycle management) systems from IBM and Dassault Systèmes are driving a multi-national collaborative design and manufacturing oil platform project that includes Chinese Yantai Raffles Shipyard, Norwegian offshore technology firm Sevan Marine and Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras. The Sevan Stabilized Platform (SSP) 300 project involves Yantai Raffles building the Sevan-designed platform using Dassault’s Catia 3D CAD, Enovia PLM and Delmia simulation and manufacturing engineering software. “Worldwide industry, not just shipbuilding and energy, is at a critical juncture,” says Brian Chang, CEO, Yantai Raffles Shipyard. “Some industries, like aerospace and shipbuilding, are leading the way in using 3D and PLM to transform the way they do business. “Other industries, from large manufacturers to small- to medium-sized businesses, must adopt this business paradigm or risk failure in today’s globally collaborative world. PLM can simulate operating conditions, thereby enhancing quality and improving lifetime operations costs. “Manufacturing today uses decades-old processes streamlined with new technology. The goal isn’t to speed up the old ways of doing things or worry about interoperability and archaic standardisation arguments. It’s about finding new ways to accomplish sustainable development, adoption of best practices, knowledge reuse and ultimately on-time delivery.” Looking at the oil project itself, it’s the result of a shortage of tankers available for retrofitting for offshore floating storage and production. The SSP 300 FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading) is a large circular, floating platform used to store and process 300,000 barrels of oil in an on-board processing plant. IBM PLM solutions have been used to enable concurrent design engineering and construction. Tight integration of the V5 architecture has allowed real-time validation of the FPSO design against analysis requirements and construction processes. Simultaneous validation of design and manufacturing drastically reduced the pattern of revisions. “We are currently moving quickly forward in our design methods by re-engineering this business process for the SSP Offshore FPSO/FSO,” says Tom Erik Smedal, project manager at Sevan Marine. “The widespread deployment of Catia V5, Enovia V5 and Smarteam [PLM] will dramatically improve our global collaboration.”