Jaydev Chauhan - The Digital Twinning Project

Summary

The transcript discusses a project led by Jaydev Chauhan for the digital twinning of power facilities aimed at enhancing operational efficiency at Ontario Power Generation (OPG). Initiated in 2018, this project utilized 3D laser scans and created a centralized system for storing and accessing virtual representations of power plants. The project allowed employees to access detailed virtual data remotely, aiding in virtual walkthroughs, training, remote measurements, and project collaboration. These digital twins helped reduce costs, travel, and improve safety and communication, revolutionizing work processes within OPG.

Highlights

• The project began by exploring old 3D laser scans in 2018 to innovate plant operations. 🔍
• Employees can explore power plants virtually, bypassing the need for physical travel. 🚶‍♂️
• Over nine terabytes of data have been collected, aiding over 2,300 employees. 📊
• Virtual applications such as training, remote measurements, and project planning increased efficiency. 📈
• Enhanced communication and work plan executions thanks to improved collaboration tools. 📞
• Digital twins have become pivotal in operational decisions and project management. 📋

Key Takeaways

• Creation of digital twins for power facilities kickstarted in mid-2018 helping transform OPG's operations. 🌟
• 3D representations of power plants allowed employees to access facilities remotely, enhancing productivity and safety. 🚀
• Over 2,300 employees leveraged this system, accessing nine terabytes of critical data. 💾
• Digital twins facilitated in reducing travel, radiation exposure, and operational costs significantly. 💰
• Virtual walkthrough, remote measurements, and training became much easier and effective. 📚
• Collaboration across teams and vendors improved with shared access to virtual plant data. 🤝
• This innovative approach elevated communication and efficiency across OPG. 💪

Overview

Initiated in mid-2018, the digital twinning project at Ontario Power Generation (OPG) was a groundbreaking effort to revolutionize how power plants were operated and maintained. Starting with basic black and white 3D laser scans from the Darlington power plant, the team looked for innovative ways to make these resources more accessible and valuable to employees. The vision expanded to creating comprehensive 3D models of all power facilities, ensuring that employees could explore any site from the comfort of their desks.

Owing to this initiative, over 2,300 employees have been able to enhance their work efficiency by remotely accessing nine terabytes of critical data stored in a centralized system, which includes virtual depictions of nuclear, renewable, and real estate facilities. Now, employees can conduct virtual walkthroughs, perform remote measurements, and even undergo training without needing to physically visit sites, significantly cutting down costs and risks associated with travel and radiation.

The digital twin technology has not only streamlined day-to-day operations but has also fostered an unprecedented level of collaboration among teams, vendors, and different departments within OPG. Teams can now seamlessly share insights and plan project executions by referencing virtual plant data, thereby facilitating instant communication and decision-making. This initiative marked a significant leap in communication and operational efficiency, promising even more innovations and benefits in the company's future endeavors.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction The chapter 'Introduction' discusses the early stages of a project focused on the digitization of power facilities. This involves creating digital twins of power generating plants, a task initiated around mid-2018. The narrative begins with discussing the nature and objectives of the project, including the tasks assigned at its inception.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Initial Project Scope and Considerations In this chapter, the team is tasked with examining black and white 3D laser scans of certain areas within the Darlington power plant. The main challenge is devising a way to make these scans accessible to the employees. When approaching tasks, the team considers multiple perspectives, including ensuring that they are doing the right thing and evaluating whether the technology used is the most current, sustainable, and scalable.
• 01:30 - 02:30: Benefits of Digital Twins The chapter titled 'Benefits of Digital Twins' discusses the criteria and considerations for implementing digital twins in a company. It focuses on determining whether the digital twin will bring significant improvements and value to the organization. The chapter emphasizes the importance of ensuring that the digital twin meets the needs of end-users and its applicability to various segments of the company, rather than just a select few individuals. If the digital twin is deemed valuable and widely applicable, the chapter further explores the most efficient methods of execution for the implementation of this technology.
• 02:30 - 03:30: Implementation and System Setup The chapter discusses the idea of exceeding user expectations through innovative approaches. The team brainstorms on going beyond simple black and white scans by implementing 3D representations of their power plants instead. This shift in thinking promises significant benefits for OPG, which manages around 160 facilities.
• 03:30 - 04:30: Applications and Use Cases The chapter 'Applications and Use Cases' discusses the accessibility and efficiency improvements in power plant management by utilizing virtual representation technology. Specifically, power plants across Ontario and the USA are mentioned, highlighting how enabling employees to access these 3D representations from their computers can significantly enhance work efficiency and offer substantial benefits to organizations like Ontario Power Generation (OPG). The goal is to make all power facilities easily accessible to improve employee work life and bring operational benefits.
• 04:30 - 06:30: Impact and Benefits Realized The chapter titled 'Impact and Benefits Realized' discusses how employees at the company are able to remotely access power plants through their computers, which served as a motivation to expedite the project. During the project, they implemented a system designed to provide secure, centralized storage that all employees can access easily via software and website interfaces.
• 06:30 - 09:00: Future Prospects and Conclusion The chapter titled 'Future Prospects and Conclusion' discusses the establishment of an infrastructure with assistance from the Chief Information Officer (CIO). Within the Office of Public Guardianship (OPG), a Center of Excellence or service provider team was created under the drawing office department. This team is responsible for field data collection and publishing on the OPU server. The chapter highlights the broad applications of this data, extending beyond virtual walk downs to include uses in virtual reality and augmented reality.

Jaydev Chauhan - The Digital Twinning Project Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 we're going to talk about the digitization of the power facilities uh effectively the creation of digital twins uh of your power generating plants uh can you tell me about what this project did honestly in the beginning uh during about mid mid 2018 time frame we were given a simple task to
• 00:30 - 01:00 take a look at few black and white 3d laser scans we had of couple of areas in darlington power plant and we had to figure out a way to make them available to employees now when any task is given to our team we look at it from a few different perspectives right such as like are we doing the right thing is this the latest sustainable and scalable technology
• 01:00 - 01:30 are we creating an order of magnitude of improvement and are we bringing significant value to the company another thing that we look at is do we do the end user really need this and is it applicable to everyone in the company or just few people and if all of the answers these questions are yes then we look at what is the most efficient way we can execute this and
• 01:30 - 02:00 how can we go beyond the expectation of the end users so while we were looking at these black and white scans the light bulb went off in our brain and we thought what if if we had 3d representation of all of our power plants instead of just few areas in darling inside right so how would that benefit to opg right remind you that we have about 160
• 02:00 - 02:30 power plants located across the province of ontario and some of them are in united states of america so if employees can access these three representation of power plants right from their computers then we can bring efficiency we can improve their life right at work and bring tremendous benefits to opg so we thought that our end goal should be to have all of these power facilities easily accessible
• 02:30 - 03:00 we are all employees so we can visit any power plant right from the computer so that actually motivated us to implement this thing at a faster pace during this project we implemented a system that provides a secure centralized storage which is easily accessible by all employees and employees are using software interface and website interface
• 03:00 - 03:30 we set up this infrastructure with help from our cio we also set up a center of excellence or you can say a service provider team within opg under our drawing office department who go out in the field and collect virtual data and publish them on opu server now this data has vast amount of applications beside just virtual walk down such as virtual reality augmented reality
• 03:30 - 04:00 40 schedules 30 point clouds and 3d model overlay interference checks we can do remote measurements drawing verifications with the field conditions and many more so we also provided a way to request for any of these additional services or applications you can say from drawing office so in a nutshell that is what we implemented in this project so with the digital twins that basically
• 04:00 - 04:30 means that anyone within opg uh is able to see in detail the inside of all of your power facilities and that allows them to consider uh any changes that they might wish to make uh like as i think you mentioned they can see whether new pipes they might want to put in are going to bump into each other or bump into things which are already there
• 04:30 - 05:00 uh and they can understand you know how processes operate it's uh this is really quite a valuable thing exactly okay so what was the impact of the project uh you know what were the benefits the opg got from this yeah so um currently there has been 19 months of run time with this new system where employees are accessing virtual data for power plants using a software
• 05:00 - 05:30 interface and another option is website interface so far we have collected about nine terabytes of data that contains our some of our real estate buildings some of our renewable generation power plants and some nuclear power plants and we are collecting more data daily and there are about 2300 plus employees using the system in their day-to-day work life for different purposes now
• 05:30 - 06:00 one of the purpose is virtual walk down which gives us appreciation of true size shape and form of the equipment and and where it is located in the power plant and this is saving us traveling time as you can imagine right and radiation dose and and the cost associated with them second purpose is training as you know many employees are retiring and new workforce is
• 06:00 - 06:30 joining so having the virtual data of power plants accessible by new employees is building their knowledge about the power plants exponentially because they can visualize parts of the plant when they need to another application is taking remote measurements from this third-dimensional data as you can imagine this is saving as cost and schedule
• 06:30 - 07:00 another and very important one in my opinion is collaborating with vendors and colleagues instantaneously now various teams such as projects design procurement construction ops and maintenance system engineering and vendors they can collaborate and reference the virtual plant and talk about where their project is located and how the project is going to
• 07:00 - 07:30 get executed very easily right and within minutes this brings us i think this brings us closer together and helps us plan and execute projects more cost effectively i can go on and on as there are many other purposes and applications that our employees use this virtual data for such as pre-job brief post job briefs virtual work instructions situational
• 07:30 - 08:00 awareness identification of storage and work areas before the work starts etc so as you can see this this brings us an order of magnitude improvement in our work life and it helps us work efficiently and collaboratively it has taken communication within the company to a new height and added a virtual perspective
• 08:00 - 08:30 in everything we do further applications such as 40 schedules are also making huge uh difference in closing the gap of unknowns during the project execution so it has truly changed how we work in short amount of time and we're excited about further benefits that this technology will bring us in the future yeah when you showed it to me the uh you showed me that it had the capability of providing information on various
• 08:30 - 09:00 elements inside the picture so there may be a valve for example that that would be in the uh in the online environment or the online picture of the power station and people could go to that and get the dimensions and the characteristics of that valve as well as that there seemed to be information available on work that had been done there in the
• 09:00 - 09:30 past and which would as you mentioned mean that people could do all of this remotely rather than having to go and look at what was on the site exactly very interesting