| Impact and Benefits
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| There are two major bottom-line impacts:
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| 1) Staff Productivity – Plant
personnel can more effectively perform their work.
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| 2) Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)
– The plant can operate at higher capacity for longer periods of time while
remaining safe and in full compliance with environmental regulations.
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| How is this possible? By extending the old adage, “You cannot improve that
which you do not measure,” to include, “You cannot improve that which you do
not see.”
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| There are immediate and far-reaching impacts and benefits to be derived through
Virtualization. For example:
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| Clarity of Communications – Because
Virtualization is completely natural, it is possible to improve the
timeliness and accuracy of all communications and prevent potential
misunderstandings between plant personnel. |
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| Safer Working Environment –
All-around safety is enhanced by the ability to conduct safety design
walk-throughs on the desktop, resulting in better trained, better prepared and
more knowledgeable staff. |
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| Safety Habits: – Virtualization
allows the presentation of safety instructions and procedures in such a way
that can be easily understood and readily accessed by everyone at the plant
including contractors and new staff who are unfamiliar with the plant.
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| Operator Training: – by
transforming complex data into a clearly understandable format, 3D
visualization supports new operators training expediting their familiarity with
the plant, its processes and related safety procedures.
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| Enhanced collaboration between operation and
maintenance staff – Virtualization enables simple and accurate
communication between operation and maintenance personnel. Questions constantly
arise related to which equipment needs to be serviced, the physical location of
an asset which is the subject of a high-priority work order, work orders
require scaffolding, ladders, or lifts, work orders requiring a special work
permit or require isolation or lock-out/tag-out prior to beginning the
specified work can begin. All questions of this nature may be addressed through
the 3D model without the need to physically walk to the location and disrupt
both operations and maintenance staff |
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| Incident Avoidance – A direct
result of clearer communications resulting from the appending of processes and
procedures to the 3D model is the potential reduction of incidents.
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| More Effective Maintenance Planning
– Maintenance planning requires the alignment of skilled staff, spare parts,
and tools. Supported by Virtualization, work orders can be better reviewed
for special requirements, such as skills, tools, scaffolding, lifts and access.
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| Increased Wrench Time – Several
industry studies have concluded that on average only 30 percent of a
maintenance worker’s time can actually be categorized as “wrench time” due to
the significant amount time spent researching and preparing to perform the
work. Virtualization, coupled with embedded visual procedures and integrated
electronic documentation can conceivably increase a given workers wrench time
to 55 or 60 percent. |
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| Shorter Turnaround Schedules –
Because of enhanced maintenance planning which takes logistics and proximity of
required work into consideration, the total number of days required for unit
turnarounds may be reduced resulting in significant value as total production
is directly increased due to less down time. |
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| More Effective Training and Certification
– The integration of Virtualization of the plant into both staff training and
certification programs, insures that the plant personnel posses a better
understanding of the plant’s physical attributes. |
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| Improved Incident Analysis –
Coupling Virtualization with time-based plant information allows one to view
the physical environment and plant conditions in time-phased, virtual views
from the comfort and safety of a conference room setting. |
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