The following interview is a lightly edited excerpt from this MODS Pods episode where we spoke with Jon Bell, CEO, about navigating the challenges in integrity management.
Q:
Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your commissioning and integrity experience.
A:
I originally started life as a dimensional control surveyor in the North Sea, which was very much linked to flange management, ensuring that we had we didn't have bird mouth in piping joints when installing new pipe work through to running campaigns of joint integrity in the Gulf of Mexico, and then on to actually helping build and create a commissioning and integrity group based out of the US that combated everything from bolted joints right through to plugging and leak testing.
Q:
You're clearly well postured to talk to us about the importance of joint integrity and the current landscape and what's on the future horizon. So, firstly, why is joint integrity such a high stakes issue?
A:
My belief around this of why it's so important fundamentally comes down to safety first. Ensuring that we have no loss of containment for hydrocarbon is obviously paramount. As we go through down the value chain, looking at how we ensure that we have up time at our facilities. We make sure that we have leak-free startups and we have accountability behind the people that put the joints together so we can ensure and learn from lessons learned of we do have leaks during a project.
Q:
What are the historical and common tools that are being used to manage bolted flange integrity, and are they failing us?
A:
Yes and no.
Depending on the size of the asset, I think the traditional method is paper-based, that has now led into Excel. A lot of these joints, for some facilities, they're not managed at all. They're only managed as and when needed.
And other facilities have a log of their joint integrity records linked to an Excel spreadsheet, potentially, and then coming more into the digital era, we do have digital applications that support full transparency of the joints.
The problem’s obviously with paper, as we all know, historical records get lost, the people inputting the data, move: move positions, move companies and, hence, you lose that traceability.
And when you lose the traceability, unfortunately, that provides problems later down the road where you don't really learn from your potential mistakes. Whereas if you have a problematic joint at start up that continues to be a problem during leak testing, you want to know about it and understand how you manage to seal the joint. We went to Max Yield. If you have to cut joints or wherever, wherever the scenario may be.
So, the system is quite paramount for historical reasons. And as we move into the digital era, that is what the digital side brings: is the accountability and historical records for the joint of the asset or the joints for the asset.
Q:
MODS Connect Integrity is part of the comprehensive MODS Connect software suite. Is the drive to have these accessible historical records - was that part of the inspiration behind creating a purpose-built tool for digital joint integrity?
A:
It was. The actual main reason we built the module was, goodness, over 10 years ago now, we were actually on a project for the Norwegian sector and it was getting built in Zwijndrecht in Holland. And we had some problems with handing over systems during some of the leak testing, and one of the client managers asked us to do a bit of a review of some of the handover dossiers that they generate during the commissioning procedure and we looked through the paper records and linked it to a very basic model at the time to understand if we had all the correct paperwork that provided the assurance that that system was ready to hand over and ultimately be, you know, ready for operations when they go offshore.
And during that process, although we had signed paper dossiers, handover dossiers we did find paperwork that wasn't supporting the readiness of the system. It was a non-critical system was what we started with, what we looked at as a bit of a proof of concept. But it was quite apparent that the paperwork –and there was a lot, if you imagine you're building an asset with tens of thousands of joints, the paperwork trail is hard to follow.
By linking the paperwork to the credibility of the actual joint, we were color coding the joints based on the actual readiness based on the check sheet, the joint integrity check sheet.
We went through this exercise together with a client to understand. It was the operations guys that asked us; they wanted full assurance that when they did take hydrocarbons on board that they had the accountability and the paperwork to support it, which wasn't the case.
From there, then, we saw that this is a problem on one particular project. So, how could we develop a digital system to remove some of the arduous tasks of the paperwork and provide operations with the necessary assurances that these joints were built made correctly, i.e. set correctly with the right lubricants, the right torque settings, etc, and then fundamentally ready for hydrocarbons to come on board.
That's how we started MODS, that's why that particular module MODS Connect Integrity was added to our ecosystem of software.
Q:
Can you provide a high-level overview as to how MODS Connect Integrity actually works?
A:
The fundamentals come down to, first of all, assigning a unique ID to a joint that can last the lifecycle of an asset.
What currently happens on certainly some of the more mature assets is every time a project or a modification takes place, the joint changes its ID. Straight away by doing that, you lose your historical records. Depending on the engineering file, the constructor, etc, that the unique tag can be used multiple times.
So, what we've tried to look at is to provide a lifetime tag for a joint, which can be recorded against, broken, recorded, broke, so that you do keep this paper trail against it.
Fundamentally, then, it's linked to the system, the line number, back to the subsystem, and then from there we assign a digital check sheet to the joint. In the back end, we have the ability to upload bolting and piping specs that tells us our torque settings or torque values that should go against the joint. And, then as the operator is filling in out filling the digital check sheet in or ITR, or check sheet on the handheld device, those metrics and those values are then measured against the official piping spec or bolting spec for the client and then it can flag any anomalies.
If the bolting spec against the piping shows that it should be torqued to 25 foot-pounds of torque, and the handheld shows it was done to 30, then it will automatically provide a flag to say that we could have an issue.
We're trying to inform that accountability of the person doing the job; the signature goes in against it as well, which was one of the problems we had back at the yard that I talked about earlier was, even though some of these check sheets have been filled out, there were no signatures. You didn't actually know who'd done the job, the accountability: were they trained to have the competency?
So, we're trying to bring all that together so the people that do the work are competent and trained to do their skilled labor, to do that job in the first place. And then all that information is housed on the check sheet. And then if we do have a problem during leak test, we have data that we can analyze and look at and learn from.
And, obviously, this is a completely paperless system. All the data that is collected on the mobile device is housed in a large database that goes against the project and then onwards to the asset. And then from that you've got data for analytics and lessons learned moving forward.
Q:
MODS Connect Integrity features such as the lifetime tags, the automatic flagging of issues, the historical records and the built-in accountability, are some of the main features that reduce or mitigate project risks and subsequent delays.
A:
The visibility side, being able to link it to an engineering model provides some great added value for some of our clients over the years, and this is really just color coded. So, you have your engineering model whether it be a green or brownfield modification. Normally you have these engineering models that are created in the smart engineering packages. We can actually link all of the progress we're doing when we're breaking a joint, torquing a joint, making up a joint, we can actually color code the model as we go. As the information comes from the handheld it syncs through the Wi-Fi, so you can use it offline when you're in the field.
Understanding a lot of the assets don't have Wi-Fi in the field, but when you come back to a Wi-Fi zone, that information goes straight to the server and then simply that then can change the color of the model linked to the ID of the joint. The visibility then for construction that's looking at potential construction work packs, although you're commissioning is looking at system handover, it provides great visibility to understand your, you know, progress from construction to commissioning, handover, and where you need to focus. So, you can start handing over the systems that need to go currently complete onto our system handover.
The visibility side has been very powerful.
And then, really, the reduction in paper. Obviously, paper comes with its challenges, administration burdens. But fundamentally, it's what I call dumb data, which is probably not the correct term. The information is going nowhere. We want to get that information into a database so we can start learning from it, especially in this day and age where everyone's talking about AI and machine learning, you need data to run these smart applications, these smart tools. The sooner we get it off of paper, the smarter we're going to get.
Q:
The model that you've referenced a couple of times is the Connect 3D Viewer feature, which is integral into all of the MODS Connect modules.
A:
It can help identify the joints, where they are from a visibility point of view. So, as they‘re walking the line, they can find them.
But, again, from the management side, the visibility of both the dashboards and the 3D model provides a very quick overview of your progress status and I think that's when it's really added value in war rooms and management meetings and morning meetings to get an understanding of progress against where we should be.
Q:
Digital tools are great, innovation is important. But getting people to change their ways of working is often where the real challenge lies. What is the key to the successful adoption in the field of systems such as MODS Connect and specifically in this instance, MODS Connect integrity?
A:
Changing people's mindsets can be hard, as we know. Nobody likes change, especially for if the if people can't understand the value that it brings. And a lot of what we do with our application, because it's an ecosystem, we might be asking people to do something upfront in their job where they don't actually see the value of it until further down the value chain of the project or the outage, shall we say.
For me the key thing is baby steps. If we look at joint integrity for instance, if we have an ageing asset that that might want to start adopting or even a newer asset where they don't have a joint integrity register, that is Excel-based or there is a requirement, legislation-driven, or a requirement for from an operation side, it's understanding the value add.
Critical systems, high-pressure hydrocarbon, focusing on maybe start with your projects that are ongoing and build that model over time as opposed to trying to do the complete asset in one go.
It's been an adoption method that we've seen, probably more so. If you adopt it in the build of the asset and then used then you're in a great position. A lot of the engineering houses now actually you start have started giving joints IDs in the 3D model as part of the engineering phase. And that adoption into execution, operations and maintenance is fantastic, you know.
But if that's not there tagging up and providing a unique ID against the joint for the life cycle, what that means is if there is a particular high volume of high activity area flow, a well bay, for instance, where you're doing quite a few projects. Looking at adopting a joint ID strategy where you keep reusing the same joint. Now, again during engineering is there a little bit more upfront work? Yes, probably. But the value add back in for the O&M side and accountability speaks for itself.
Q:
The flexibility afforded by mobile technology is like a no-brainer. But what have your observations been specific to the uptake of onsite mobile solutions?
A:
The adoption of mobile technology can be tricky as well. We've had great success and we've seen, you know failure in the adoption of handheld devices. And we've learned from that. We've tried to keep our application simple, fit-for-purpose.
We're trying to get lessons learned from users to keep that up to date. But without getting data off of paper, then we're back in quite an archaic way of working. The sooner that we can get applications, mobile technology or even desktop-driven data entry, the better.
And if you start putting all that together and, baby steps, looking at a project at a time, a modification at a time, or looking at your critical systems where you could have safety concerns around hydrocarbon or high-pressure leakage, then that model can then build over time where you do then have your complete asset over a period of X amount of months or years rather than trying to attack it in one go.
I think that's where you would start seeing value add quicker. And there are obvious opportunities. MODS have supported of many clients to take P&IDs and ISOs and mark them all up and offer that kind of service. Even though it could be a burden on the operator and understand that everyone's quite busy in what they're doing, there are mechanisms to accelerate the program if so desired.
Q:
MODS offer software support as well as digital consultancy. Can you elaborate as to how these services can assist with optimizing uptake and scalability of digital solutions?
A:
A new greenfield asset is going to come data rich, where a level of support in the software is going to be training and ongoing support.
Whereas on a more mature asset where they don't have data-rich environments, you're going to have to start looking at existing drawings, existing information, to start detailing permanent joint IDs and feeding that through the stakeholders. These are the types of areas that MODS can support as well.
And taking that information we're getting smarter in what we're doing, we're trying to understand how OCR and AI can help support that as well. We're trying to minimize human intervention, shall we say, and this is part of our continuous improvement of the system.
But the adoption of the technology requires an element of set up and manual intervention. But that doesn't necessarily have to scare people off and it can be done in a staged approach. It can be done set to a budget that fits the operator's requirements, so it's just understanding the parameters and then tackling it as best we can.
Q:
Can you offer any advice to project leaders who are still stuck in spreadsheets?
A:
Every operator, EPC has a set of different challenges, has strong points and weak points and every single one is different.
It's understanding how digitalization can add value to your either organization or project, and that is the key, realistically. Because getting rid of spreadsheets isn't always the answer, because that might not necessarily be the step and the value add you need to be looking at. It could be before. It could be after.
Spreadsheets are never going to go away. There's a there's a place for spreadsheets, but you know we use it daily. It's more around understanding by using digital technology how can we add value in the key places that that's going to provide the return of investment, whatever that may be.
And this is why MODS have touched on a number of different applications as part of our ecosystem because we understand that every project, geographical location and contractor and operator has different challenges. Some are strong and some are weak, as a touchstone.
By providing an ecosystem of modules, we're hoping that by using a toolbox, so to speak, we can pick and choose the aspects of our tool set to try and help support what that weakness may be. And by removing the paper in the first place, collecting the data…even an Excel spreadsheet is a digital data form. You know, we import a lot of Excel data into our system, whether it be an import and export of historical data.
Excel, again, has its place there. It's how you use the data to get better, to achieve your return of investment. From the start, if someone's completely paper based, it's really understanding where, you know, turning an organization paperless in a couple of years is impossible. It would cause more damage than good, probably. It's about identifying the areas to focus on, using digital technology to combat those challenges and then moving progressively forward to a paperless execution model.
Hear how MODS Connect Integrity delivers real-world results: