Present in 30 countries and the largest energy company in Norway, Equinor provides energy for 170 million people daily and operates the world’s largest integrated offshore pipeline system. It is the No. 1 pipeline gas supplier in Europe and the third-largest net seller of crude oil in the world. In 2022, the company celebrated 50 years of turning natural resources into energy for people and progress for society.
From Manual to Machine-Driven Processes
In the past, Equinor had relied on manual processes for decision-making in asset management, but as the company expanded, it began embracing a data-driven approach, using automated dashboards. However, its decision-makers recognized the need for further advancements and envisioned adopting condition-based maintenance (CBM).
This transformation would allow for a more autonomous, machine-led, and data-driven approach to asset management, freeing up valuable internal resources and enabling team members to handle multiple cases simultaneously.
“Equinor wanted to progress from condition monitoring to condition-based maintenance,” Tom Naastad Svennevig, lead engineer at Equinor, explained. “For the past eight or nine years, we have operated a monitoring center where a few equipment groups are being monitored by use of home-grown dashboards as well as third-party expert systems. However, as the number of plants onboarded to the center increased, it required more and more resources. We believe that applying condition-based maintenance on equipment where it is possible to connect a remedial action to a degradation mechanism will relieve the resources working in the monitoring center.”
CBM is paradigm shift in asset management, allowing companies to move from traditional calendar-based maintenance schedules to a proactive approach powered by data-driven insights. While traditional maintenance strategies often lead to unplanned downtime, CBM empowers operators make informed decisions based on real-time equipment condition, mitigating disruptions and maximizing asset reliability.
“The primary purpose of condition-based maintenance for us is to provide confidence for continued safe operation and avoid disruption,” Svennevig added. “We believe that several degradation mechanisms we had in the past can be detected automatically, and actions being taken without human intervention.”
Benefits of an Integrated Solution
For Equinor, SAP Asset Performance Management stood out as a superior choice, offering a range of tangible benefits, particularly, according the Equinor manager: “In contrast to third-party solutions that require data migration, SAP Asset Performance Management seamlessly integrates with existing SAP systems, eliminating the need for redundant data entry and ensuring data accuracy across all platforms.”
Other benefits that Equinor perceives include:
- Reduced administrative burdens and increased overall efficiency
- Automatic updating of asset information across all relevant components
- Importing equipment condition status from third-party expert systems
- Storing evidence for safe operation and triggering actions for degraded conditions
- Generating notifications based on condition monitoring rules for prompt responses to potential equipment issues
- Seamless ingestion of sensor data from field systems into SAP Asset Performance Management
- Pre-assigning tasks to maintenance notifications based on asset strategies and failure modes
- Empowering maintenance teams to act swiftly and effectively, minimizing downtime and preventing potential equipment failures Seamless scaling to accommodate additional equipment and assets
Optimizing Asset Status Visualization with SAP Asset Performance Management
Effectively visualizing asset status is crucial for making timely and well-informed decisions, which is why SAP Asset Performance Management offers comprehensive dashboarding capabilities through embedded SAP Analytics Cloud. This allows users to select specific assets or entire fleets for a detailed overview in a centralized view, which enables quick identification of potential issues and facilitates proactive maintenance interventions.
The dashboard utilizes clear, intuitive labels to indicate asset health status, ranging from “excellent” to “unacceptable,” which streamlines decision-making. Critical alerts are prominently displayed in orange, immediately grabbing the attention of maintenance personnel, and providing necessary context and guidance, ensuring that timely and appropriate actions are taken.
Additionally, the dashboard seamlessly integrates with Equinor’s wider SAP ecosystem, enabling real-time data exchange and integration with existing maintenance processes.
Effective Change Management: Important for CBM Implementation
Equinor has implemented a CBM-driven maintenance approach. CBM is running in production. The job to roll out the solution has started. The process of change management is main focus going forward.
“We will achieve this through clear leadership commitment, comprehensive communication, a pilot project for proof of concept, streamlined data smoothing for accurate monitoring, role redefinition for CBM management, establishment of KPIs for continuous improvement, and employee empowerment through involvement,” the Equinor manager explained. “Our objective is that this will result in transitioning to a proactive maintenance approach for 40% of our equipment and significant reductions in maintenance costs and asset downtime.”
“SAP Asset Performance Management helps us streamlining maintenance processes and facilitating proactive preventive maintenance,” Svennevig concluded.
Karin Fent is senior director of Global Customer Success Digital Supply Chain at SAP.
Top image courtesy of Equinor | Ole Jørgen Bratland © Equinor
