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Operations & Maintenance

The ROI Behind Digitizing Brownfield Facilities

"Organizations are looking for cost effective solutions to transform into a digital world," Kayd Larsen of Brownfield Solutions Ltd. shares his perspective on the why companies should be digitizing brownfield facilities. Brownfield Solutions focuses on engineered information management and the integration of engineered information into the operations of plants and facilities. Brownfield provides consultation and support services to help owner operators maintain and re-use engineered information throughout the plant lifecycle. *** We need to be able to show them the value of of what digitalization can do for them and their day to day uh a lot of guys on the front line have been doing things certain ways for many years and it's become a norm, so it's no longer really seen as a problem. So what we want to do is we like to come in with Hexagon; we can show you the benefit how that can relate to your work processes on the front line, from there, the front line personnel will be able to take that up to management and we continue to go up the ladders to to show the real cost savings as a whole, but the guys who are doing the planning, doing the scheduling, doing the maintenance, they need this information quickly, and we can prove that to them with Hexagon PPM products and Brownfield Solutions both in play, we can show them the value. We are currently working with one of Canada's largest oil producers on a digitalization effort on a project and right now we have kicked off the project. We're looking at close to a million documents and drawings that we're going to have to go through and scrub, we're gonna be creating these tag-to-document relationships, creating intelligent links and even back to the 3D model. Our efforts we're hoping to achieve this by year's end, the customer's also looking for two to one payback and I think we're gonna exceed those expectations by far. The advantages are huge when we look at operating facilities, which is where our background comes into play. We're looking at critical information such as P&IDs, data sheets, maybe it's single-line diagrams, isometrics, etc., and with Hexagon PPM technology, we're actually able to link all of those data sources together so we can go, I can search by tag for example, I can pull up my P&ID, from the P&ID I can jump to the data sheet, and we can then go to the 3D model. We can take that really as far as the organization wants to take that now with the technology PPM has, we're doing this today, it's extremely effective, and we're seeing the results. I would say to businesses that are still struggling to see the value is to reach out to their local Hexagon PPM and with Brownfield Solutions and Hexagon as a partner, we can really sit down and understand the ROI, so organizations are looking for cost effective solutions to transform into a digital world, the cost expectation out there seems to be higher than it actually is, and with today's technology we can do things much cheaper and much more effective than we used to be able to. So looking at that, I think the biggest thing would be to let us come in, let us show you what we can do for you, and put a cost on that, as well as an ROI, the big thing is the return on the investment, so if we can pull an ROI and have a return on our investment within one to two years that is huge for the organization, and just helps along with that whole digital transformation.