• S1
  • S2
  • S3
  • S4
  • S5
  • S6
  • S7
  • S8

Safari USPI-Semmtech, 16 September 2021

Safari USPI-Semmtech, 16 September 2021

Purpose and goal

On 16 Sep 2021, USPI organized the online Safari provided by Semmtech. The meeting started at 14:00 and ended at 15:30 (CEST). The meeting was open to staff from member companies and sister organizations.

A Safari is a networking event organized by USPI to improve learning between our member organizations. One member invites its peers in USPI to a talk about a current topic or development they’ve been working on. Plenty of time is reserved after the presentation for questions and discussion, to encourage learning and networking across our members.

38 people participating from 19 different companies and organizations participated in the safari. After the introductions of the utility company and Semmtech by Heico Feenstra and Olivier Stulp, Rik Smit of Semmtech did an excellent job in explaining the digital partner ecosystem The utility company is using and provided a demo in which the subsequent steps of the requirements management, design and design review process were shown.

The case

The subject of the Safari was how Semmtech supports a utility company with the challenges it faces to do more with less staff on projects related to requirements management, contracting, engineering and implementation, and handover to operations and asset management once built. The solution direction is to use a structured approach in which a digital partner ecosystem is created based on the use of open standards. This ecosystem allows the utility company to digitally define the requirements for a project, send these requirements to the contractor, receive the design back from the contractor for review and send the review results back to the contractor. During the project the automated design review can be repeated. Once the project is handed over, the digital as-built data are stored in the platforms of the utility company created for this purpose. Requirements definition and the exchange of the requirements and designs is based on a fully digital cycle. No documents are used in this process. All the steps are based on using definitions and exchange methods based on open standards. As much as possible open libraries are used, although some project specific elements are made available as well in the shared libraries.

 

Conclusions

A general conclusion from this session is that an innovative approach using digitization allows the utility company to manage at least part of the challenges it was facing. Other companies in the process and energy business supply chain will be facing similar or related challenges. The example of the utility company shows that believing in the possibilities of digitization, having the right partner like Semmtech and the determination to make it a success, can help solving at least part of the challenges. Standardization plays a key role in this as an enabler.

It was the first time a Safari was organized online. There weren’t any major hiccups during the Safari. Questions were asked during and after the presentation and demo. The discussion after the presentation could have been more lively, but given the online context and subject of the Safari, one can imagine that the participants need more time to digest what they’ve heard first before questions will come up. There will be plenty of room to ask these questions as the challenges of the utility company will be felt by many others in the supply chain as well.

Follow-up

Overall the Safari can be considered a success. Lessons learned will be used for the next Safari about which you’ll be informed through our communication channels. Unfortunately corporate policies of the utility company don’t allow us to share the recording of the meeting. An anonymized version of the presentation is made available by Semmtech. It doesn’t include the utility company related elements, but it will show the concepts and approach used to deliver the solution. If you’re enthusiastic about the concept of a Safari and have a current topic or development from within your own company or organization, you feel deserves the same attention, please contact USPI (www.uspi-global.org) and we’ll arrange a Safari for that topic as well. Presenting and discussing about current topics or developments is one of the ways for the supply chain to exchange information and potentially move forward quicker..