DSYNE: Digital System Requirements for Natural Resources Engineering

Industrier som utvinner naturressurser - olje, gass, energi, mineraler og kjemiske produkter - er viktige bidragsytere til økonomiene i Norge, Brasil og USA. I alle disse tre landene bygger firmaer som utvikler naturressurser anleggene som trenges. Slike anlegg er dyre å designe og bygge. Industrien prøver nå å finne mer effektive og kostnadsbesparende måter å gjøre dette på. Anleggene må oppfylle krav fra myndigheter, eiere og operatører. De må driftes effektivt, i henhold til design, og med høy sikkerhet og pålitelighet. Dagens praksis er at kravene står skrevet i dokumenter: standarder, avtaler, prosedyrer og spesifikasjoner. Dette vanskeliggjør og fordyrer prosessen med å sjekke at det vi bygger oppfyller kravene som ble stilt. Digitalisering tilbyr en nå arbeidsmåte som kan øke effektivitet og senke kostnader. Digitaliseringen av design og drift av anlegg forutsetter en digital representasjon av krav. DSYNE er et nettverk av informatikere og systemingeniører i Norge, Brasil og USA. Alle disse arbeider med måter å digitalisere krav og å utnytte datamaskiner i ingeniørvirksomhet og drift av anlegg, slik som oljeplattformer, kraftverk, smelteverk og gruver. Internasjonalt arbeid trengs for å unngå at enkelte land bygger egne måter å håndtere krav på som er inkompatible med hverandre. DSYNE vil proaktivt legge til rette for internasjonalt samarbeid og utvikling av felles forståelse. Prosjektet finansierer tre arbeidsseminarer, utveksling av forskere og utvikling av et felles kurs innen digitale kravstyring. Et arbeidsseminar ble holdt i Rio de Janeiro i november 2022. Vi har hatt et seksmåneders opphold fra UFES hos UiO og USN, og et annet fra UFRGS hos UiO i 2024. Resultatene av dette initiativet har hatt ringvirkninger innen standardiseringsarbied og interoperabilitet, med resultater formidlet gjennom standardsinitiativene CFIHOS, DEXPI, ISO og IEC. Resultatene har blitt implementert is systemer i Petrobras, Equinor, AkerBP, Aker Solutions og Aibel.

Planned impact: The project will build a framework for internationalising an understanding of how engineering requirements can be managed digitally. Formally, this understanding will be built using an MSc course module in Digital Requirements, suitable for computer scientists, engineers and employees in companies. Actual Impact: USN has prepared MSc modules on Digital Requirements. Results and insights from the work have been communicated and adopted in international oil and gas companies (Petrobras, Equinor, Shell, Chevron, AkerBP, TotalEnergies and other IOGP) and the process industry (ISO, DEXPI, NAMUR). Planned Impact: DSYNE's mobility program allows junior researchers in computing to work with engineers across national boundaries to build the interdisciplinarity needed for digitalisation. Actual Impact: Mobility was restricted due to external factors (COVID, Floods in Brazil, changes in the INCOSE Oil & Gas Working Group). This meant that only two exchanges could be financed, from UFES and UFRGS to Norway. These exchanges resulted in high-quality publications Planned Impact: DSYNE will work with relevant branch organisations, of whom three formally support the project, to ensure that the results of this work are disseminated into the wider engineering community in all three countries. DSYNE's workshops are held around international conferences, ONS and OTC. This will provide an effective way of dissemination. Actual Impact: We worked with ISO working groups, International Association of Oil & Gas Producers, Industrial Digital Twin Association, DEXPI and NAMUR to communicate our work. Conferences in USA and Norway were not held, but we have co-located work with the annual November Conference in Rio de Janeiro. Planned Impact: The KONKRAFT working party in Norway has identified DSYNE's area of work as critical for cost reduction in the capital projects we need to manage the energy transition. Actual Impact: DSYNE researchers have been deeply involved in implementation projects financed and motivated by the KONKRAFT initiative. These results have been internationalized to Brazil and the US through this work,

DSYNE is a project to build an international research, education and innovation network in digital requirements management in engineering. This process is a vital, but very expensive part of the capital projects that are used to build todays oil platforms, energy plants, infrastructure and processing facilities. The state of the art is a process where operating companies, engineering firms and equipment suppliers exchange paper or unstructured documents containing requirements and their verification results. This costs money and reduces the quality of engineering. Current research has shown that it is possible to use semantic technologies to describe requirements in a truly digital way, so that they can be shared in databases and used for automated reasoning and validation. This has the potential to change the way requirements are managed and transmitted in the natural resources industry. However, if this to happen, we need to (1) build international awareness of these methods, (2) build knowledge and skills in this technology and methods, both in computer scientists and engineers and (3) bring together domain knowledge in engineering with computer science to create useable, scalable tools for managing requirements. The DSYNE network is built around three hubs in the world natural resources industries: Oslo, Houston and Rio de Janeiro. It brings together leading schools in computer science and systems engineering, with complementary research and educational profiles, to build a course in digital requirements for MSc level training and continuing education. The work is supported by operating and engineering companies, who will participate in DSYNES workshops at their own expense. The project is also coordinated with relevant branch organizations and clusters in Brazil, USA and Norway.The work builds on the SIRIUS SFI at the University of Oslo and the Centre for Systems Engineering at USN.