AFRY Virtual Site Environment is AFRY's tool environment where various project actors work on engineering data (ET), i.e. all the information that is needed and collected during the design process in order to get the plant started at some point.
“We need to have the necessary information available at the right time. The integration of AFRY’s and customers’ information systems speeds up planning,” says AFRY’s Päivi Paajanen.
“Planning a facility is a big puzzle, where information is transferred from one team to another. Certain rules must be followed to achieve the goal. Different parties must understand the requirements that are required when moving from one project phase to another,” says Päivi Paajanen. The uniformity of the facility's data also enables ET-IT-OT integrations to utilize digitalization later.
AFRY sees a general challenge in implementation planning as the fact that equipment designers do not focus on plant data in great detail in the early stages of planning. Equipment suppliers proceed with basic information from general data, and they only start more extensive planning once they have received a large-scale supply contract. The further we go towards implementation planning, the more equipment designers put their own input into the process.
Straightforward communication of information
"In recent large projects, we have streamlined the transfer of information from us to them and from them to us. We have worked a lot to ensure that we can easily receive information from equipment suppliers into our own design systems. We have even partially integrated some information systems so that the equipment supplier can continue their own design to produce information further in their own system," says Päivi Paajanen.
"Whereas before, a project would involve a large pile of documents, now we can speed up the transfer of information as information is automatically transferred between different systems. Through integrations, we can better obtain data as the basis for our planning. It is in the interest of all project parties when planning needs to be done more precisely and collaboratively. In integration, information flows forward all the time, which speeds up planning as unnecessary manual work in data processing is eliminated."
In the AFRY Process Industries division, the Smart Site department is a developer of technical data management and design tools, where Päivi Paajanen works as the product owner of AFRY Virtual Site Environment and is responsible for process, electrical and automation tools. The AFRY Smart Site service package, in turn, offers tools for optimizing industrial plant operations and utilizing digitalization.
AFRY has its own product for design integration, the AFRY Virtual Site Environment, a set of various tools. In this environment, the customer can utilize data in different stages of the further process, because it is also used in the customer's production systems in addition to the design process. The customer no longer needs to create a new design system during the plant's production phase, but can continue the system that has been in use since the beginning of the plant's design.
"We have noticed that this is something worth focusing on. In today's ET-IT-OT world, the emphasis is on the fact that the data collected during the design process must be in a well-organized format," says Päivi Paajanen.
“The Plant Information Manager appointed to the project considers data for the benefit of the customer already in the early planning phase. In this way, we want to ensure the functionality and utilization of the data even after the plant starts up. Recently, the importance of this issue has been discussed a lot with customers. In our large projects, the Plant Information Manager is always part of our project team.”
What? AFRY has created a comprehensive tool environment, AFRY Virtual Site Environment, where different project actors work on common design data and can effortlessly share information with each other.
Why? When information is automatically transferred between different systems, the transfer of information is faster. It makes it easier for all parties when project planning needs to be done more precisely and collaboratively. In integration, information flows forward all the time.
