Model-driven development for safety-critical projects in intelligent energy

Abstract

A responsive organization is one whose engineering processes and platform can sense and respond with flexibility, accuracy, precision, and speed to macro trends impacting the energy industry, including increased complexity, rapid adoption of new technologies, increasing use of Engineering, Procurement and Contract Management (EPCM) companies, modularity, internationalization of supply chains, and new regulatory mandates, while constantly improving operations and capital efficiency. IBM has developed an engineering approach and platform that will improve the transformation to Digital Intelligent Energy. The approach and platform reuses best practices harvested from adjacent complex, safety-critical industries. This paper describes Model-Driven Development (MDD) for Safety-Critical Projects using analysis and assessment of instrumentation, control and embedded technologies. MDD allows organizations to first analyze problems and then derive and evaluate potential solutions using various analytical techniques, including simulation, prior to final decision-making. Stakeholder needs are verified and validated in a formal manner, creating a common understanding of the requirements. Graphical representations of the requirements improve communication by breaking down barriers between domains, better aligning the process and organization as understanding between the domains improves. This reduces the number of issues encountered when commissioning an asset, leading to reductions in cost and schedule risk. This approach has been applied successfully in many safety critical industries, including aerospace, defense, nuclear, automotive and medical devices. IBM has been successful in helping companies manage through this change process and has codified our knowledge in a series of best practices applicable to any organization. Working in a strong partnership with the organization, our approach is to first understand the capabilities of the organization, how it operates, and then extends the analysis to its future needs, resulting in a roadmap for the transformation from the current practices to the future state. By leveraging this approach, we have changed the operating philosophy of many companies, improving their efficiency, effectiveness, and profitability. Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Safety, Failure Analysis, Reliability, Security, ModelDriven Development. Copyright 2013, Society of Petroleum Engineers.