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NAERINGSPH-Nærings-phd

Collaboration models in offshore helicopter personnel transportation and emergency response planning

Alternative title: Samarbeidsmodeller for offshore helikoptertransport av personell og beredskapsplanlegging

Awarded: NOK 1.8 mill.

Project Manager:

Project Number:

327594

Application Type:

Project Period:

2021 - 2025

Funding received from:

Organisation:

Subject Fields:

Objectives: Planning problems in offshore energy logistics are rather complex, however the research in this field is scarce and has a huge potential for improvement. The aim of the project is to provide knowledge and solutions enabling collaboration between offshore energy companies in logistics planning. The objects of study are 1) logistics of personnel transportation offshore by helicopters and 2) offshore emergency preparedness logistics. The primary objective of the research is to develop a conceptual framework for offshore energy industry collaboration through horizontal cooperation of operators in personnel offshore transportation and emergency preparedness system planning, utilizing the benefits of sharing economy. The secondary objective is to develop optimization models and algorithms for cooperative helicopter fleet operations and emergency preparedness system planning, as well as simulation models enabling evaluation, test and analysis of solutions. Background information: The accumulated focus on sustainability, efficiency, safety and environment make offshore operators highly interested in logistic cooperation and joint optimal utilization of resources, sharing costs, risks, environmental and safety responsibility. An interesting aspect to investigate is how the level of cooperation between operators affects cost and emissions reduction. As not much formal research has been conducted within the field, the motivation for this research is to investigate the potential of collaboration and sharing economy for offshore energy companies, and to contribute to the development and implementation of decision support tools for collaborative planning improving logistics of personnel transportation and emergency preparedness services. The project is initiated by Equinor in collaboration with Molde University College - Specialized University in Logistics.

The aim of the project is to provide knowledge and decision support tools enabling collaboration between offshore energy companies in helicopter personnel transportation logistics and emergency preparedness system planning. The objectives of the project incudes the development of a conceptual framework for offshore energy industry collaboration through horizontal cooperation utilizing the benefits of sharing economy and social response, optimization models and algorithms for cooperative planning, and simulation tools enabling evaluation and analysis of plans. The project will investigate how collaborative logistics planning of offshore operators will reduce costs and negative environmental effects, and increase reliability and quality of service. The main research challenge is related to the high complexity of studied combinatorial optimization problems, such as periodic routing and location coverage problems, using a cooperative game-theoretic framework. The integration of cooperative planning within routing and location problems is one of the current challenges in operations research. The sophisticated optimization models and algorithms for helicopter transportation and emergency preparedness logistics planning will be developed and adapted to the new collaboration framework. The main development challenge is implementing the new optimization algorithms into simulation models with integrated data analysis techniques. The developed decision support tools will enable the possibility to validate the newly developed collaborative frameworks, and cost-, environmental responsibility- and risk-sharing policies.

Funding scheme:

NAERINGSPH-Nærings-phd