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Accompanying this groundswell of change are very
pointed questions about digitalization which indica- Greenfield projects
te a greater willingness than ever before to embra- Greenfield projects have been completed using the
ce such solutions: same methods for decades. Traditionally, projects
• what is available to address my specific involving controller-centric I/O solutions rely on the
needs? software and hardware tasks happening sequen-
• what evidence is there that digital works? tially, with each stage dependant on the completion
• here are the gaps we have; how can these be of the last. This is inflexible, with changes causing
filled? disruption, added expense and delays. In fact,
64% of today’s projects face cost overruns, often
Previously questions about digitalization were more to the tune of being 20 to 30% over budget. And,
theoretical and conceptual. Now, more than ever, 73% report schedule delays, with as many as 30%
executives are interested in the practicalities of of loops failing on commissioning due to errors in
change. the engineering process.
Recognizing that the status quo needed changing,
Doing it right ABB has developed an approach called intelligent
projects which harnesses the power of digital to
With the proper will in place, the issue is how to streamline the engineering and infrastructural ele-
effect proper change. The key thing to realize is ments of a newbuild.
that, while transformative performance is possible Intelligent engineering uses an integrated range
with digital, investing in technology is not enough. digital technologies to remove software and har-
People and equipment need to work together more dware interdependencies and allows development
collaboratively and, for that, processes and habits efforts to proceed in parallel. This new way of wor-
need to change. king also makes it possible for project team mem-
Spending money on things which produce more bers to share information more effectively thereby
data will do nothing to solve the information deluge reducing scope for costly errors.
that people currently experience; nor is this likely
to transform performance to the scale required by Companies need to ensure their data
today’s challenging market conditions. Companies is sufficiently interconnected such that
need to ensure their data is sufficiently intercon-
nected such that people across the organization people across the organization are
are working from the same set of information. Ad- working from the same set of information
ditionally, this consolidated ecosystem needs to
Ormen Lange’s subsea wells extract and deliver actionable insights tailored for Under traditional approaches, the use of hard-
and pipelines deliver gas to
an onshore processing plant the needs of various stakeholder groups. This ap- wired analog instrumentation means signal types
at Nyhamna, Norway, where plies as equally for greenfield sites as for existing, are fixed, increasing the risk of re-work or delay if
it is dried and compressed brownfield operations. the exact mix of I/O channels is incorrect. “Select
I/O”, by contrast, a single-channel, flexible I/O de-
veloped by ABB, allows each I/O channel to remain
flexible and undeclared until a very late stage, often
just before commissioning. This decouples I/O har-
dware engineering from software design allowing
both to happen in parallel – lowering development
costs and shortening the delivery schedule.
And, separating the I/O hardware from the pro-
cess controllers minimizes the amount of rework
through late changes in the project. It also allows
for pre-tested, standardized cabinets that can
be wired directly without the need for additional
marshalling cabinets.
Cloud engineering further streamlines initial project
execution by making standard designs, enginee-
ring workflows and support tools accessible to all
project execution groups at all times for both appli-
cation software and hardware. Engineers can per-
form a virtual factory-acceptance-test of the fini-
shed control system software, without ever leaving
their desks. This allows control system hardware to
be shipped to site much earlier.
Re-use and standardization avoids the additional
cost and time required for technical clarifications,

70 Impiantistica Italiana - Marzo - Aprile 2018