Ahead of speaking at StocExpo, Samp’s COO Thomas Grand explains how a data – driven approach can improve terminal operations
The tank storage industry faces a wide array of challenges, from managing complex facilities to ensuring data accuracy for critical decision- making. As operators aim to minimise risks, enhance profitability, and maintain a competitive edge, having a clear and reliable understanding of industrial assets is more crucial than ever. Addressing these needs, innovative solutions are emerging to transform how the industry manages operations and assets.
At this year’s StocExpo, Samp will showcase Shared Reality, an industry- proven software solution designed by oil and gas veterans to help tank farm and terminal operators as well as stakeholders in the midstream and process industries achieve operational excellence. By simplifying project and asset management complexities, Shared Reality provides a data-driven approach to improving collaboration, safety, and efficiency.
An Advanced Yet Simple Workspace
Shared Reality leverages patented artificial intelligence (AI) and 3D technology to create an immersive and interactive digital workspace. This highly secured cloud solution helps site operators link a 3D Reality Model of physical assets captured on-site via 3D scanning to technical data such as PFD/P&ID flowsheets an equipment metadata from existing asset management systems, offering team a comprehensive view of their facilities. Deployed in just a few days after a rapid site survey done by a local 3D scanning company, it provides almost instant insights into actual site conditions and ensures data integrity across operations.
By enabling users to visualise, navigate, and analyse their sites in detail, Shared Reality facilitates better understanding and informed decision-making. From routine maintenance to major projects like expansions or revamps, the solution ensures that technical data aligns seamlessly with actual site conditions.
A major advance over traditional approaches based on manually designed 3D CAD models is that operators can quickly update the 3D Reality Model themselves, using a photogrammetry application on their work tablets or smartphones. For the first time, workers in the field can quickly and simply update a model shared by all teams as soon as a change is made.
Zero Bad Surprises On Site
In sectors such as tank storage and midstream, where precision and collaboration are paramount, Shared Reality offers several key benefits:
- Preventing on-site issues: By providing a clear and accurate representation of physical assets, augmented with their status and properties, Shared Reality helps prevent unexpected challenges during maintenance or project execution.
- Simplifying revamping projects: Engineering and hazard studies are simplified thanks to the unambiguous physical (3D) and functional (flowsheets) context provided to all teams involved, whether internal staff or external contractors.
- Optimising procurement: Thanks to its secured 3D streaming web technology procurement teams can collaborate temporarily with external companies during call for tenders, ensuring faster proposals time, better offers, minimised amendments and claims.
- Accelerating maintenance work: Teams can identify and address maintenance needs more quickly via a more visual interface, reducing downtime and improving operational continuity. Plus new workers quickly familiarise themselves with the site layout.
- Fostering collaboration: Shared Reality allows site personnel, engineers, contractors, and investment teams to work together effectively with all stakeholders able to access the most current and accurate data.
- Improving safety & auditability: By grounding operations in real- world conditions, Shared Reality minimises risks, promoting a safer working environment for all involved, while greatly simplifying auditing processes.
This solution is particularly valuable for organisations managing sensitive or complex infrastructure, where discrepancies between design data and on-site conditions can lead to costly delays or safety hazards.
Tangible Results
A notable success story with tangible results comes from Trapil, a leading pipeline and tank farms operator with over 70 years of industry experience. Recognising the difficulties posed by legacy infrastructure and fragmented data, Trapil identified Shared Reality as the ideal solution to overcome these challenges.
David le Friant, chief technology officer at Trapil, highlights the workspace’s impact: ‘Samp provides the most pragmatic digital twin solution to address the challenges of legacy infrastructure. Our partnership with Samp ensures that our teams and clients benefit from cutting-edge technology to maintain operational excellence. All our teams adopted the solution very quickly, from field operatives to project managers in the technical department. It has become an easy and intuitive tool for preparing our work with reliable data.’
Beyond their own facilities, Trapil already managed the successful deployment of Shared Reality on the pipeline and tank farms of one of its clients, SPMR.
Understanding Reality Capture
Reality capture is the process of digitally documenting physical environments to create precise, high-resolution 3D representations. This technology underpins the creation of 3D Reality Models like those used in Shared Reality, offering a clear and detailed view of industrial sites. Two primary methods dominate reality capture: 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry.
3D Laser Scanning: Precision Meets Efficiency
3D laser scanning has been a cornerstone of reality capture for over two decades, traditionally relying on Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLS). TLS technology captures millions of data points with exceptional accuracy (millimetric), producing detailed 3D models suitable for complex industrial settings. More recently, technological advances have revolutionised laser scanning. Simultaneous Localisation And Mapping (SLAM)-based scanners offer faster and more cost-effective alternatives to traditional TLS systems while maintaining an almost comparable quality (sub-centimetric). These portable devices enable operators to navigate through facilities and capture spatial data in real time, even in very hard-to- reach environments, providing faster surveys, significantly reducing costs and deployment times without sacrificing precision.
Photogrammetry: Versatility For Broad Applications
Photogrammetry, another powerful reality capture method, uses high-resolution photographs to generate 3D models. There are two main methods: drone-based or tablet/smartphone photogrammetry.
Drones equipped with high-definition cameras are used to survey expansive outdoor or elevated areas, such as the top of storage tanks or hard-to-reach pipeline sections. They provide a bird’s-eye view and generate reasonably detailed 3D models (multi-centimetric) that are invaluable for site planning and asset monitoring. Whereas the latter can be used on a smaller scale to capture localised equipment or specific sections of a facility. This approach is particularly suited for smaller, focused scans – covering areas of just a few square meters – offering a convenient, precise (centimetric) and accessible way to digitise physical assets.
Stepwise Integration & Immediate Impact
A distinguishing feature of Shared Reality is its AI-powered 3D equipment recognition, enabling users to link 3D representations of assets to their corresponding flowsheet or technical data. This capability gives operators a unified and comprehensive overview of their facilities, enables to perform 3D-based business intelligence (e.g. checking P&ID-to-3D consistency, or performing 3D assets colourisation and filtering based on their status) helping them make data-driven decisions with confidence.
Shared Reality can work standalone or integrate seamlessly with existing data sources – such as spreadsheets or flowsheets – as well as IT systems like ERP, EAM, CMMS, EDMS, and SCADA platforms. This optional connectivity ensures that organisations can retrieve, assess, and update vital information without disrupting current workflows.
With deployment completed in a few days to a few weeks, Shared Reality delivers immediate value by:
- Reducing project timelines: Faster access to accurate data and insights allows teams to execute tasks more efficiently.
- Cutting costs: Streamlined workflows and improved procurement reduce unnecessary expenses.
- Eliminating surprises: By aligning technical data with site realities, the tool minimises unexpected challenges once work begins.
A Future-Ready Solution For The Tank Storage Industry
As the tank storage industry continues to evolve, solutions like Shared Reality are redefining how midstream operators manage their assets and operations.
By enabling rapid integration of data, simplifying collaboration, and delivering actionable insights, Shared Reality empowers organisations to navigate today’s challenges and prepare for a more resilient future.
For terminal operators and midstream players looking to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and improve safety for both blue collar and white collar teams, Shared Reality offers a proven, innovative pathway to operational excellence.
Rapid Multi-Site Deployment
Storengy, a key player in natural gas storage, successfully addressed a significant challenge – the lack of 3D CAD models for its facilities – by deploying Shared Reality. This solution enabled the company to quickly establish a functionally rich digital twin for its sites without relying on traditional CAD models. Notably, Storengy achieved this rollout at an impressive pace, implementing Shared Reality across all its sites at a rate of one per quarter.
Antoine Boudehent, head of data and industrial digital services at Storengy, explains: ‘Shared Reality enabled us to create highly accurate representations of our facilities through 3D scans, offering precise depictions of actual field conditions. In addition, we aggregated our existing data sources, now accessible via Samp’s 3D streaming portal – including our document management system, telemetry, asbestos database, and maintenance management system.’
He continues: ‘This digital twin provides a comprehensive 1D/2D/3D contextual framework for all our data, supporting diverse applications such as operations, maintenance, engineering, remote support, training, and communication.’
The rapid, systematic deployment of Shared Reality across Storengy’s facilities highlights its scalability and effectiveness in transforming asset and data management for complex industrial operations.
Visit Samp at StocExpo on 11 & 12 March at the Rotterdam Ahoy on stand N16, and don’t miss COO Thomas Grand’s speaking session at the FETSA Tank Storage stage.
