How operators regain sovereignty over their plant data

Energy suppliers' plants have a long life. Many substations have been in operation for decades and are regularly serviced, repaired, converted and extended. Most operators use service providers for this purpose. Engineering in particular was outsourced in the 1980s and 90s – in the truest sense of the word, because the operator no longer has the source of his own plant data. Instead, he usually has plant documentation in the form of PDFs or even just paper; however, neither offer any testing options for QA tools. And often the supplier virtually reserves the copyright for the master documentation.

For example, if an operator needs a new safety cabinet, he is dependent on the engineering office that planned the last cabinet, especially if it is needed quickly. This is where the appropriate typicals and master data are stored in the system. He may also be dependent on using the same hardware supplier, even if there are cheaper suppliers. This drives up costs unnecessarily. So the operator is not in control of the whole project, he is more or less "detached", although he bears full responsibility. And since operators usually have to deal with several suppliers, the problem increases.

AUCOTEC's cooperative platform Engineering Base (EB) comes to the rescue. Even if the engineering is carried out by a service provider in EB, not only documents, i.e. paperwork or PDFs, but also the integrated digital data model of the plant are supplied. EB's database also contains all standard templates down to the last detail with all variants as well as all project versions. With the model, operators not only regain sovereignty over the data of their plant. They can also run automated test runs over the entire documentation or speed up maintenance.

For maintenance tasks, EB offers an app that allows easy access to parts of the plant at any time. Technicians can use a tablet to enter the plant and navigate to any desired documentation area without much preparation. Technical changes can be directly fed back to EB so that the model, i.e. the digital plant twin, can be easily kept updated and the operator always remains highly efficient and up to date.

In addition, the platform offers a special quality management system for energy suppliers with which operators can automatically check the entire documentation at the push of a button despite sub-projects being awarded to several subcontractors. A quality seal ensures that all specifications, energy suppliers guidelines and subsequent documentation are correct. If the QA tools find errors, it is possible to navigate directly from the checklist to the faulty objects, correct the errors centrally in the model and update the list. The changes appear automatically at each representation of the changed objects – without multiple entries, agreements or waiting time.

Whether maintenance, conversions or "only" quality checks: with Engineering Base, operators can act flexibly and quickly. They have control over the master originals and are therefore independent of individual service providers and hardware suppliers. This in turn results in considerable savings potential in tenders. No Excel back and forth with suppliers, no protracted visual checks in the plants, but highest cost efficiency and significant time savings over all life phases of a plant.

Not only as an AUCOTEC customer are you king – or queen. With EB you are above all king (queen) of your data. Get (back) in control – we will be happy to help you!