Robert Gordon University (RGU) and multinational provider of risk management and sustainability services, DNV GL, have joined forces on a project which aims to deliver cost savings to the oil and gas industry.
The project, ‘Digitization Platform for Processing, Detecting and Classifying Symbols in Engineering Drawings’, is being funded the Data Lab Innovation Centre, supported by DNV GL, and delivered by a team of researchers from RGU’s School of Computing Science and Digital Media.
The team includes Dr. Carlos Moreno (Research Fellow), Professor Chrisina Jayne and Dr Eyad Elyan, the project lead.
The project aims at speeding up the whole process of interpreting and contextualising engineering drawings and makes it more cost effective.
Dr. Eyad Elyan, a senior lecturer in computing, said: This project provides a great opportunity for our team to apply cutting-edge research on a real-life and challenging business problem like this one.
The results we are aiming at will not only produce a solution capable of interpreting engineering diagrams automatically, but will also provide a unique opportunity to mine large collections of such drawings, find hidden knowledge and patterns and inform future practices.
Brian Bain, Senior Principal Specialist at DNV GL in Aberdeen, added: Much of the time involved in running technical studies on the safety and performance of offshore installations is taken up in the gathering of information.
For older installations, this is held in hard copy engineering drawings. By automating the process we hope to provide a faster and more efficient service to the industry
Duncan Hart, Business Development Executive, from The Data Lab, Aberdeen said: “The Data Lab are pleased to support this project. The Oil and Gas industry has extensive historical data and, using modern Data Analytical techniques, this can be interrogated and valuable insights gleaned to help drive significant cost and efficiency savings at all levels in the industry.”
The project started in January 2017 and is due to be completed in early 2018.