“We are constantly working to develop and improve our products and services, and the establishment of Node and UiA's Centre for Research-based Innovation (SFI) has been important for us and the rest of the supplier industry in Agder,” says Nicolai Nilsen, vice-president for innovation at HMH, supplier of equipment and services to the drilling industry.
SFI Offshore Mechatronics was the first project at UiA to be accepted into the Research Council’s programme for Centres for Research-based Innovation (SFI) in 2015. The overarching goal of the SFI scheme is to enhance innovation capacity and boost value creation in Norwegian business and industry through long-term research.
According to Nilsen, HMH has made quantum leaps in its services in the digital and software fields. However, he does not attribute this solely to the collaboration with the SFI.
“It’s not that input from research leads to a new and clever twist on our products. It's more about creating an environment where we collaborate and are open to new ideas that can develop and provide new products and solutions in areas other than originally intended,” says Nilsen.
Facts about the Centre for Research-based Innovation Offshore Mechatronics (SFI)
Academic partners:
NTNU
Aalborg Universitet (DEN)
NORCE Forskning
RWTH Aachen Universitet (GER)
Partners from industry:
National Oilwell Varco Norway (NOV)
HMH (tidligere MHWirth)
MacGregor
SLB (Cameron Sense)
GCE NODE (Industry Cluster)
Skeie Technology Group
Lundin Norway
StepChange
ABB
Bosch-Rexroth (GER)
Klüber Lubrication (GER)
Egde Consulting
Monitoring and streamlining
“HMH works to improve drilling operations by increasing the use of automation and digitalisation. The goal is always safer and more efficient solutions,” says Nilsen.
He highlights the products DrillPerform and Activity Visualizer as examples of innovative products.
“Simply put, DrillPerform is a data analysis tool that analyses offshore drilling operations,” says Nilsen.
The goal is to detect when operations are most effective so that one can attempt to replicate this at all times to create the most efficient and safe drilling operation possible.
He emphasises that the product belongs to HMH, while the data belongs to the customers.
Drilling operations in 3D
Activity Visualizer has also been developed to optimise drilling processes. It allows you to see the entire operation on the drilling deck in a physical 3D representation.
“The solution displays completed drilling operations. It allows us to visually compare, making it easier to understand where the bottlenecks are,” Nilsen says.
Doctoral thesis on condition monitoring
Nilsen also highlights Martin Hemmer's doctoral thesis as a contribution to the development of new products and services from HMH.
Hemmer was a PhD student at UiA who was recruited from HMH, and his doctoral work was funded by HMH and SFI Offshore Mechatronics. It should be noted that test facilities at HMH were used, and a special test rig was constructed at UiA during the doctoral research.
“We have built upon insights from that thesis. Today, we use it in connection with monitoring and data analyses that help us maintain and streamline operations on oil rigs,” Nilsen says.