Technology Record - Issue 22: Autumn 2021

151 MANU FAC TUR I NG & R E SOUR C E S equipment days, weeks or even months before it fails. This helps asset-intensive organisations such as PETRONAS to reduce equipment down- time, increase reliability, improve performance and safety, and decrease operational and main- tenance expenditure. PETRONAS trialled AVEVA Predictive Analytics running in the Microsoft Azure dur- ing a six-month proof-of-concept (POC) project at selected upstream facilities and downstream plants. The focus of the project was to evaluate how effective the solution was at detecting and providing early warnings of machinery issues. Following a successful POC, PETRONAS imple- mented a pilot at four upstream platforms and at two downstream plants. Systems integrator TrisystemEngineering (TSE) was hired to deploy the solution across various sites. Working closely with PETRONAS, TSE implemented the solution using an agile meth- odology via sprint planning, grouping together equipment that performs similar functions. Each sprint typically includes seven to ten pieces of equipment. As AVEVA Predictive Analytics comes with purpose-built artificial intelligence that has been customised for the energy industry, TSE did not need to code anything and could fol- low a templated approach to ensure the solution could be deployed efficiently and scaled quickly. In each case, the solution was operating and deliv- ering value within two months. “Our digital transformation strategy at PETRONAS is to add value quickly, as this has a faster impact on our sustainability goals and on profitability,” says Mohd Nazrin Zaini, senior engineer of rotating equipment at PETRONAS. “We do this by identifying discrete projects with tangible deliverables and then cascade the same approach elsewhere, having learned valuable les- sons along the way. AVEVA Predictive Analytics allowed our teams to adopt a templated approach that enabled us to quickly deploy the solution in other sites, ensuring high time to value and fast return on investment (ROI).” AVEVA Predictive Analytics works in con- junction with PI System from OSIsoft (now part of AVEVA), which PETRONAS already used to gather data from critical assets in the plant. PI System collects and structures this data for historisation and analysis. The data is used by AVEVA Predictive Analytics models to high- light any anomalies, trends, potential incidents “Our digital transformation strategy at PETRONAS is to add value quickly, as this has a faster impact on our sustainability goals and on profitability” MOHD NA Z R I N ZA I N I , P E T RONA S