Introducing our brand new series, Sennen Spotlights, where we spend the month focusing on a dedicated topic related to the Sennen software. This month we tackled Offshore Operations with the professional support and contributions of our Senior Consultant, Mike Young.
This week we are focusing on Set to Work, and how Sennen can help you mobilise your O&M resources. Within the Sennen software, this begins with our Shift Planner section.
Planning is the key to safe and efficient use of the resources you have available to you. The final “master” plan is often made up of several smaller plans, each coming from a different scope of work, possibly a different contractor and often using a different pool of resources.
To ensure success, Sennen allows all users to see their available resources and create a plan. This is then validated against a list of requirements to ensure it not only meets the scope of work but also integrates with all of the other plans joining together to create the “master”. Each plan also goes through an approval loop to allow the operator to have full control of the tasks.
In one of my previous roles as an operations manager, I had the responsibility of managing several different contractors, each concentrating on their own work scopes. When it came to the shared resources, such as vessels and turbines, there were often clashes of interest resulting in several daily meetings every day to review and edit each of their latest plans. Each one was in a separate system, making this task very time and labour-intensive.
Once we started using the Sennen software, the potential clashes were identified right back at the initial planning stage. This early joined-up work ensured that most problems could be avoided. Also, having all the plans in one system made it easy to review and change as required.
Mike Young, Senior Consultant – Offshore Wind, Sennen
This week we are focusing on how Sennen can ensure you know who is in control of your assets. This comes under the Transfers screen in the Sennen system.
All Safe Systems of Work (SSoW) require the operator to know who has control of each asset at any one time. When working under the Wind Turbine Safety Rules (WTSR) this is covered by transferring control from the operational controller to an authorised technician. When this happens you need to be able to ensure the current control status of the asset, and that the qualifications and authorisations of the technician, are all in order. You should also keep a record of each and every transfer of control.
Sennen does this by having a live database of the current transfer status, personnel qualifications, personnel authorisations and asset restrictions. The software can then automatically reference the required information allowing the operational controller to see what they need, giving them the confidence that they can safely transfer control each and every time.
In a previous job, I managed the Control Room and a team of operational controllers. Before Sennen, the qualifications and authorisations were managed on spreadsheets that were updated by several different contractors. Often we would be using out-of-date information and couldn’t be 100% confident that the dates we were referring to were correct.
Once we started using Sennen for the transfer of control, we could see how the integrations ensured we had the latest data. For me and my team, this gave us confidence in our decisions and total control of the assets we were responsible for.
Mike Young, Senior Consultant – Offshore Wind, Sennen
This week we are focusing on how Sennen can ensure you know exactly what is happening on your wind farm. When operating an offshore wind farm it is vital that the information you are using to make decisions is live. Old data can be inaccurate and potentially unsafe.
An offshore wind farm has a multitude of live data sources which, when used effectively, keep things running smoothly. Whether monitoring the location of boats and teams, the status of turbines, heights, weather conditions or radio communications. All of this data can easily become confusing if not managed and visualised efficiently.
Sennen manages this potential confusion by providing role-specific dashboards designed to fit how you operate your assets. Each member of your team can have an editable view to show them exactly what they need to see when they need to see it and with the reassurance that what they are seeing is the latest, most accurate data.
In a previous role I managed a team of marine coordinators. Having created a vessel manifest on a spreadsheet, this would be printed and physically delivered to the vessel skipper. The problems arise when changes are required to the original plan. People, tasks and locations can change multiple times between when the plan is created and when the vessels actually sail. It was common for us to be on our 7th or 8th version of the manifest before we sailed, resulting in confusion and delays as to which manifest should be followed.
When we started to use Sennen’s Live Manifest solution to plan all of the tasks and create a live manifest, any changes were easily made and instantly updated, resulting in only one true copy. This was accessible by all users including the technicians and vessel skippers.
Mike Young, Senior Consultant – Offshore Wind, Sennen
Take a moment to listen to Paul Grimshaw, explaining where he would start to solve the main data challenges in the world of Offshore Wind O&M Data. Watch Now!
This week we are focusing on how Sennen can integrate your work processes and data so you have full visibility within one system and can make the most of your existing infrastructure.
Offshore wind farms utilise various different individual systems to analyse and control. These include CMMS for managing tasks, tools and equipment, an ERP solution to manage your teams and contractors, work planning tools, marine coordination, HSE… the list goes on. All of these systems will have separate user accounts and work independently of each other.
At Sennen, we specialise in integrating the systems you already have installed and specifically integrating the data so that it is easily accessible by the people who need it. No matter where the data is coming from, a complicated CMMS or a simple spreadsheet, we have yet to find an integration we couldn’t master.
When I was an operations manager I was always keen to utilise the existing equipment I had installed across the site rather than install new equipment. Having different user accounts, expensive licences for multiple users, people sharing log-in details just didn’t work for me. By using Sennen we were able to integrate every useful piece of information and make it accessible to the person that needed it.
Mike Young, Senior Consultant – Offshore Wind, Sennen
Take a moment to listen to Ed Hall from London Array (now RWE) share his wants and needs from O&M data as an offshore wind operator. Watch Now!
