HP March 2022 eBook—Energy Transition - 13

Executive
Viewpoint
A. MCCLOSKEY, CTO AND HEAD OF R&D
AVEVA
The importance of digital twins
and cloud-based services
Hydrocarbon Processing spoke with
Andrew McCloskey, Chief Technology
Officer and Head of R&D at AVEVA,
about how digital twins and cloud-based
services are used, their benefits and challenges,
security issues, etc., as related to
the downstream oil and gas, refining and
petrochemicals industries.
HP: What are digital twins and
how is AVEVA using them to
facilitate its customers' digital
transformation initiatives?
McCloskey: Digital twins are virtual
replicas of a physical object or system.
Extended reality technologies
ANDREW MCCLOSKEY is the CTO and Head
of R&D for AVEVA. In his role, he is responsible
for product development, including execution
excellence, built-in quality and security, and
fostering innovation across the company's
global R&D efforts. He is a member of AVEVA's
Executive Operating and Strategic Leadership
Teams responsible for AVEVA's Engineering
Business P&L, which includes process design,
plant engineering and design, shipbuilding,
procurement, fabrication, construction and
operator/enterprise training. Prior to this, he
was Executive R&D Leader for the Schneider
Electric Software Business. He joined the group
(formerly Invensys Plc.) in 2006 as Head of R&D
for the Simulation Products team.
Prior to Schneider Electric, Mr. McCloskey
was the Lead Engineer working on Space
Shuttle's guidance systems for the U.S. National
Space Program; Product Development Manager
at two successful startups that resulted in
multi-million-dollar acquisitions; and Director
of Engineering for the Toshiba Mobile Division,
where several new innovative offers were
developed and drove double-digit growth for
the company.
Mr. McCloskey holds several technical
patents and under his leadership his teams
have created more than 100 new patents. He
earned a BS degree in aerospace engineering
from California Polytechnic University Pomona.
He attended USC for graduate studies, and has
taught university level courses in software
development.
enable
manufacturers to create a complete digital
twin of their processes and assets, which
allows them to respond to unexpected
events quickly and efficiently, and reduce
unplanned shutdown time that can cost
businesses millions of dollars each year.
Additionally, digital twins can incorporate
real-time process data with current
economic conditions, expediting the decision-making
process for operators.
Our customers in the downstream oil
and gas, refining and petrochemicals industries
have faced significant challenges
to their efficiency, sustainability and profitability
due to COVID-19-deploying
digital twins has boosted their resilience
and reduced costly downtimes. For example,
with this technology, operators
can create the representation of an actual
piping and instrumentation diagram
(P&ID), map each equipment object to
a detailed engineering database, and 3D
model build and test the dynamic stimulation
early in the process design.
HP: You mentioned the impact
of COVID-19 on the downstream
petroleum industry. In the
current, largely remote working
environment, how do digital
twins support workers in this
industry and enhance refinery and
petrochemical plant operations?
McCloskey: The benefits of deploytwins
in workforce training
ing digital
are multifold, and include familiarizing
employees with an industrial site, bolstering
safety protocol training and enabling
interactive field operations and maintenance.
For example, using a tablet device
or Microsoft HoloLens, employees can
view an augmented overlay of a physical
asset and access step-by-step procedures
for maintenance or training purposes.
This, in turn, generates precise operating
information that enables teams to improve
performance and accelerate pace.
AVEVA has also been helping oil and
gas industry clients ensure operational
continuity during COVID-19 by prioritizing
their remote visibility. For the worker
that is now offsite, the digitalization gap
poses an immediate issue, as what could
be easily observed while onsite must either
be captured and conveyed by the
skeleton crew onsite or via sensors. If remote
work becomes the new normal in
the long term, the need to digitalize the
closed-loop process to capture higher levels
of fidelity-which, in effect, represents
a process twin-is made even more clear.
Increased information sharing between
internal stakeholders is another
way in which digital twins enhance refinery
and petrochemical plant operations,
with key performance indicator (KPI)
data projected across process and overall
plant production. Digital twins accelerate
the operational excellence of plants
by supporting the entire engineering
lifecycle, from unleashing a continuous
improvement of operations to optimizing
process and control design by comparing
capital vs. operating costs.
Refinery and petrochemical plant operators
today are demanding improved
Hydrocarbon Processing | FEBRUARY 2021 | HydrocarbonProcessing.com
http://www.HydrocarbonProcessing.com
HP March 2022 eBook—Energy Transition

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