Bridging the Digital Divide in 2020
2020 was a different year in many respects, in large due to the global COVID-19 pandemic causing massive disruption to our usual modes of working, both offshore and onshore. Digitalisation has been vital, offerering opportunities to not only find alternative ways of working, but to improve and enhance existing setups.
By harnessing available technology in innovative ways, BW Offshore is tapping into the growing fields of Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things and Machine Learning.
This approach is part of BW Offshore’s Digitalisation Strategy.
Business Intelligence (BI)
Business Intelligence (BI) has been at the forefront of digital transformation, and Microsoft Power BI dashboards developed by various departments have gained a remarkable following in the organisation in the last few years. In April 2020, a COVID-19 taskforce was appionted to respond to the ensuing crisis, and a COVID-19 dashboard was developed and published in May 2020, providing an up-to-date status of the global pandemic situation in relation to the countries where BW Offshore operates.
(PI) System
Enabling a comprehensive visualisation of offshore operations from onshore has been an essential goal in 2020. Leveraging on a Plant Information (PI) System to allow onshore engineers and operators to analyse asset operating parameters in real-time, using incoming data from the assets for remote monitoring, troubleshooting of operational issues and optimizing the plant process.
Lighthouse and ROSS
The Digitalisation programme is a good opportunity to enhance performance and environmental impact outcomes. With the successful go-live of Lighthouse in 2019, a digital platform that analyses and displays real-time operational data, a major milestone in the strategy has already been met. The Lighthouse pilot has been a first step towards a vision of an integrated operations centre, and in 2020 we continued to evolve with several other initiatives already being implemented, such as Remote Support & Survey (ROSS), a platform has been devised to facilitate better remote communication on the asset through video calls and augmented reality. Solutions like ROSS can help to minimising vendor and third-party inspection travel offshore, contributing to emissions reductions.
Award-winning innovation
For its digitalisation progress in 2020, BW Offshore was awarded winner of the Trailblazer award by Offshore Technology Excellence Awards. The Company was nominated for its implementation of ROSS on BW Catcher, as well as 360 Street view on BW Joko Tole in which PI and document modules have been integrated. The Offshore Technology Excellence Awards celebrates achievements and innovations in the global offshore oil and gas industry. The Awards provides a platform to recognise the people and companies that are driving digital change.
