The Digital Twin: Are You Prepared?
Posted on September 7th, 2021
Posted in Uncategorized
Digital twins have been garnering a lot of attention lately, but talk to ten people and you’ll probably get ten different answers as to what a digital twin is, so let’s start with some basics. What is a digital twin?
A digital twin is a virtual representation of an object or system that spans its lifecycle, is updated from real-time data, and uses
simulation, machine learning and reasoning to help decision making.
The digital twin marketplace is poised to explode in growth, with a projected market size of $16.4B by 2024. Early movers who have taken advantage of this technology are healthcare and pharma industries, manufacturing asset excellence, and commercial building optimization. In the oil and gas and petrochemical industries the use has been primarily limited to plant turnarounds and large scale engineering projects. Specifically, the upstream oil and gas community has been slow to adopt, with understandable technical hurdles, namely desperate and aging OT systems, poor communication infrastructure, and lack of scalable products on the marketplace. That paradigm is shifting. Industrial IoT devices are dramatically decreasing in cost, and it is now easier than ever to acquire high frequency data, and either run advanced computations at the edge (i.e. onsite with field deployed hardware) or in a cloud instance.
When it comes to digital twins, the natural place to start is with Advanced Fault Detection. SCADA systems are great at alerting operators when telemetry readings fall above or below a threshold. They can even handle more advanced computations such as rates of change or duration, but there is nothing to guarantee that the previously established alerts are “correct” or “accurate” for the current state of the system. As wells mature, fields develop and infrastructure changes so does the operating envelope of the equipment. This is where digital twins come into play. By creating a digital copy of the system using physics and statistical based equations, the digital twin is able to constantly compare real world values with that of the model. This produces a continually updating system that can alert operators when the system is not operating efficiently.
The next logical step is to look into the future and predict the Remaining Useful Life of a piece of equipment or system. By labeling and identifying previous failures, a digital twin is able to detect how current conditions affect the remaining life of equipment. Finally, the “holy grail” of digital twinning is Supervisory Process Control. Essentially, this is an advanced operating layer above the traditional SCADA system focused on optimizing pad or full field operations in a closed loop control system.
All of this sounds great, but how do you actually implement a digital twin, and “train” this software? This requires two key elements to seamlessly come together. First, is a powerful piece of software that can ingest OT data, and contains a development environment where all the necessary code can be developed, tested, deployed, and maintained. Second, are subject matter experts that can identify key problems, label data sets and develop interfaces that allow other subject matter experts to interact with the software and continue training it. This is where a strong implementation partner, such as Halker Smart Solutions, that can leverage both years of process and mechanical knowledge, and industrial automation, can offer an advanced level of insight and control to upstream oil and gas operators.
Austin Dean graduated from Colorado School of Mines in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering. He has experience in engineering design projects for well pad facilities, gathering systems, and midstream natural gas facilities. Starting his career at Halker in 2014, his roles and responsibilities have spanned Process Engineering, Project Engineering, Project Management, and Facilities Engineering. He specializes in jet pump artificial lift surface facilities and dynamic hydraulic modeling. Austin brings an E&P perspective to the Halker team, with a focus on project economics and larger implications of design decisions.
Emily Strengers graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering in 1998 (Hookem’ Horns!). She has over (20) years of experience in the Oil & Gas industry, has been involved in projects ranging from offshore platforms to onshore crude units, LNG facilities, gas plants, cokers, and polyethylene units, and has worked in 6 different countries around the world. As a member of the Halker team since 2019, she has brought her extensive experience to aid in project management, client and staff training, FEED studies, construction support, and facilities operation for both upstream and midstream projects.
Jeff Wellen graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in business and economics in 2002. Jeff is a licensed professional engineer with over 19 years of project management, project engineering, and mechanical engineering experience. Most of his professional career has been in the Oil & Gas industry with a wide range of experience across various types of projects including gas treating, LNG, well pad sites, cryogenic processing, biofuels, and more. He has also worked as a field engineer to support construction, as well as in a fabrication shop to oversee module/pipe-rack assembly. As a member of the Halker team since January 2018, his breadth of involvement in various projects provides Jeff a strong basis to lead a project management team through the trials and tribulations when executing any type of project ranging from technical studies to full EPC projects in the rapidly evolving midstream and upstream industry sectors. Jeff was named an Engineering News Record (ENR) Top Young Professional in 2018 for the Mountain States Region.
Paul Brennan is an industrial automation specialist, PLC programmer, business manager and product development professional. He graduated from Colorado Mesa University in 1992 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. Paul now has over 25 years of experience providing industrial automation solutions and large-scale automation integration projects for oil & gas, water/wastewater, irrigation, and greenhouse industries in the US and Eastern Europe. Paul’s career has been spent developing leading edge, revolutionary automation products, and in the process, he has obtained several US Patents. Paul has notably designed products such as PADPro, PADManager, PROView and QLogiX for upstream oil & gas facilities, utilizing state of the art technologies with PLC’s and high-powered single board computers to provide advanced data collection and data processing at the well head.
Jeremy Montoya graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering with an Electrical specialty focus in 2010. Jeremy is a licensed professional engineering in multiple states and has over a decade of experience in consulting engineering and has working in nearly every sector or the business, from oil and gas to food and beverage, mining, pharmaceuticals, commercial and residential applications. Jeremy started his own company, Selah Engineering and Design, in 2020 amidst the global pandemic and created a successful business that supported clients in a variety of sectors. Jeremy longed for a true multidisciplinary team through this time, which opened the door in 2021 for a partnership between Selah and Halker. In this partnership, Jeremy stepped into being the EI&C director at Halker, while continuing to support existing clients via Selah. As director, Jeremy brings a passion to build up and support staff as they provide quality engineering and design services to every client we have the opportunity to work with. With an eye for detail, value and confident support- our EI&C group will continue to grow and be recognized for their expertise, attentiveness, and quality deliverables in every project. Jeremy has also volunteered engineering services abroad, helping with the design of water/wastewater treatment facilities in Kenya, as well as master plans for facilities in Mexico.
Dan Grant has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Northern Arizona University. He is a licensed professional engineer in 22 states and brings over 30 years of experience to projects and clients. Dan completed his PMP and has worked as an engineer and project manager. His diverse career spans numerous market sectors, including energy, oil & gas (upstream, midstream, downstream, and water disposal processing), pipeline and terminals, mining (above ground and underground), chemical and pharmaceutical, water and wastewater and pumping stations, industrial manufacturing, clean rooms, 24/7 and mission critical operations, data centers and control facilities, and power (substations and transmission & distribution). In the renewable energy sector, Dan’s experience covers client-side and utility/grid-tied solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated PV power generation sites. At Halker, Dan previously served as the EI&C Director and now supports clients and projects as a team and technical resource. He’s knowledgeable in wide aspects of electrical design and engineering, including power system analysis, motors and VFDs, harmonics, grounding and bonding and lightning protection, cathodic protection, heat trace, relay protection schemes, electrical area classification and API RP500, and power generation.
Andrew Depperschmidt is a graduate from the Colorado School of Mines with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Physics and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering. He has experience in a variety of construction and facilities projects including both upstream and midstream natural gas and crude oil processing. He joined Halker in January of 2015 as the Mechanical Department Manager and has since taken on several different responsibilities with the firm, including General Manager and Vice President. Over the course of his time with Halker, he has overseen the company’s growth, helped develop the management team, and helped structure operational processes around project execution for maximum quality. He’s inspired by Halker’s outstanding team daily and takes pride in being people-focused while driving the company’s progressive and forward-looking culture.