The Digital Design Basis. Demonstrating a framework to reduce costs and improve quality in early‐phase design

As a joint initiative, Aker BP, Lundin-Norway, Aker Solutions, TechnipFMC, Aibel and Aize, together with Sirius (the oil and gas research centre at the University of Oslo) have developed and demonstrated a common digital model representation of the information in early-phase design bases for oil & gas field developemnts. The scope of the project was to develop a proof of concept for a Digital Design Basis that supports data-centric rather than document-based engineering. The project established a standards-based data model that holds data about both the design basis and functional requirements decided by an operator. This model that can be implemented in any relevant software tools in a concept study, to ensure that information shared between operators and EPC vendors, with their different software tools, have the same meaning and understanding. The model is based on a common digitalized language for communication along the field development supply chain.