ECM: Handling the complexities of CAD

Until that point, Hess had been storing its CAD drawings either in paper form or scanning them and storing them as PDF files. But updating the paper-based system was labor-intensive and slow, as well as costly.

Mature market

"Two factors converged to accelerate our decision to implement a new system," says Martin Trevino, the IT manager responsible for global document services at Hess. "First, we felt that the software products in this market had matured to the point where they were going to work well. Second, the energy sector had grown so rapidly over the last few years, and our project inventory had increased to the point where we faced significant challenges in managing our set of technical documents."

Hess decided to run McLaren’s Enterprise Engineer on top of FileNet, and is in the process of migrating its CAD documents into the new system. Design engineers and other users of AutoCAD now use the McLaren EE interface to contribute content to the McLaren/FileNet system, called the Technical Document Management System (TDMS). EE then renders the CAD documents as PDF files so that any user can access them. The system also stores other documents that are related to technical activities; those documents may be in MS Word, PowerPoint or Excel format. In general, the documents are related to the operations and maintenance of Hess’ oil and gas production facilities, which are widely dispersed in the Gulf of Mexico, West Africa and Southeast Asia.

The McLaren software includes Work Packs, Review Packs, Approval Packs and Transmittal Packs to fully manage the life cycle of the technical documents.

Quick learner

"The life cycle management process assures that the right documents are reviewed and approved by the respective discipline managers before they are published to the broader user community," Trevino says. "Documents are accessed through EE Manager, which has an easy-to-use search interface."

The Work Manager interface provides tools for the annotation of all file types and graphical comparison of CAD drawing revisions. "Documents are stored in a familiar folder system," comments Trevino, "and users become proficient after just a few hours of classroom training."

The TDMS is managed out of Hess’ Houston office and was first deployed to support Hess’ exploration and production operations in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa business units. Hess plans to complete the access deployment and training at its Southeast Asia business unit later this year.

"Having a centralized system provides us much faster access," concludes Trevino, "as well as more accurate and reliable data, all of which lead to better decision making."

McLaren Software is a Scottish firm founded 10 years ago, initially as a systems integrator that built custom applications on top of Documentum (now EMC). About six years ago, the company identified an opportunity in managing engineering information, because complex authoring systems were incompatible with existing document management systems. McLaren developed linkages between the leading CAD packages, AutoCAD and MicroStation from Bentley Systems, and two leading document management companies, Documentum and FileNet.

Enterprise Engineer has three components: one that ensures asset documentation integrity; one that tracks project modifications; and one for transmittals, which manages the transfer of information from projects to suppliers.

Avoiding incidents

"Information contained in transmittals is critical because it provides an auditable trail about the supply chain," says David Parry, CTO of McLaren. In one case, a supplier had put through a change request for the type of fireproof paint used in an offshore platform. When the final inspection was made, it was discovered that the wrong paint was used. "This type of situation could have ended up in litigation," Parry observes, "but the document acknowledging receipt of the change request was in the system, so the customer could prove its claim."

Being able to get to the right information rapidly is increasingly important. "Many of our customers buy our software because they have had information incidents," says Parry. "For example, a large utility had an explosion in a substation, and the company president wanted to see the drawings for the location where the accident had occurred. He could not find them."

According to Parry, locating the correct documentation can take hours or even days. But with computing power and software capabilities both growing, effective solutions are now within reach.