LCI – Document package or continuous process?

LCI or LifeCycle Information is a hot topic in the Norwegian Oil & Gas industry. For my international readers who do not know this term, it has to do with managing huge amounts of documentation from plant engineering through product engineering and fabrication. Then cross checking it all through multiple iterations. The documentation is then supplied to the Operator at several milestones in the project from early design through commissioning.

A more international term would be preparation of Documentation For Installation (DFI) and Documentation For Operation (DFO).

Rigorous demands on LCI from the operators
Operators put rigorous demands on what information they want in a project, and at which points in time they need it due to their need to monitor progress in the projects, and to be compliant with safety and regulatory standards. The Engineering procurement & construction contractor is responsible for collecting, checking and supplying the documentation from its own disciplines as well as all suppliers in the required way.

LCI Coordinators
Traditionally it has been the domain of a whole host of LCI Coordinators to make sure that all documentation is present and if not, make sure it is created…. However the “best” LCI coordinators manage to produce the information without “bothering” engineering too much. It has largely been a document centric process separated from the plant/product engineering process.

Varying LCI requirements from operators
One of the real headaches for the EPC’s are the varying requirements from different operators in different countries or especially when the end customer is a yard. I’ve witnessed rigorous and detailed LCI deliveries in a project for an operator, and a completely different set of deliveries for a yard. This challenge has led to more EPC’s defining their own LCI strategy and processes as their own best practice, while treating requirements from operators in different parts of the world as “add-ons” to their already existing LCI process.

Going from document-centric to data oriented approach
In recent years, I’ve started to see a shift from the separated document centric approach to a more data oriented approach where data is harvested from different data structures, or linked data in context if you will. This process is no longer separate from the plant design and project execution process, but rather an integrated part of it. This shift is very similar to how the aerospace industry is executing their projects. One such example is Airbus DMU (Digital Mock Up). With this approach it is easier to share and collaborate on data. Dependencies and consequences of changes are more easily understood and experiences can be harvested from one project to the next by copying data structures from one project to the other. Some EPC’s are also creating best practice template structures or libraries. I've seen this approach used successfully to facilitate re-use and to minimize engineering time during FEED phase (Front End Engineering & Design) and also during contract execution.

If you want more information regarding the differences between a document centric and data oriented approach I would recommend Jos Voskuils blog series on the subject.

CONCLUSION
The Oil & Gas industry is under pressure to save money and be more efficient. LCI is one of the domains where there is a lot to be learned from other industries. Building the LCI processes into your engineering and project execution processes will greatly reduce the LCI effort. Of course this demands that you have some way to collect, control and consolidate engineering and design data from various sources.

Bjørn Fidjeland
www.infuseit.com