1. How has globalization affected your customer base and what do you see on the horizon to meet those challenges?
Many of our customers are adopting new ways of working to stay ahead in this competitive global market. Outsourcing, insourcing, offshoring and online workgroups all create a totally new business environment. In line with these developments, our corporate mission is now focused on taking engineering data management out of the engineering department into the enterprise and beyond.
Companies today more than ever need help to manage the ongoing bulk of information that is created, archived and used every day to facilitate the enterprise’s healthy operation. Engineering-content-management (ECM) software solutions enable companies to manage and exchange engineering content — drawings, data, technical asset information and related files — with the rest of the (extended) organization, including internal departments, (outsourcing, insourcing and offshoring) contractors, suppliers and customers.
With companies attempting to get a strong foothold in the global village of today, BlueCielo has moved into a new phase as a solutions provider, offering clients support and professional services on a truly global scale.
BlueCielo’s customers benefit from the enterprise-wide deployment of up-to-date and relevant information. This helps to speed up decision-making, avoids errors and pulls together the engineering department, contractors and other outside contractors on the same page.
2. What are your customers’ interoperability demands and how are you addressing them?
Many of our customers have a rising demand for interoperability between their engineering systems and other departmental and enterprise information systems.
From the engineering department, engineering content created with CAD, workflow and Office tools needs to be connected with enterprise content management systems like Microsoft SharePoint and Documentum to improve knowledge sharing and collaboration with internal and external stakeholders. Non-engineers and external staff, such as contractors and staff from subsidiaries, increasingly need the ability to search, retrieve and update engineering content. Our integration modules deliver these capabilities and seamlessly enable relevant parties to access engineering content from within their enterprise content management system.
Our customers also often require interoperability between their engineering and maintenance systems. Our InnoCielo Asset Management Module integrates the engineering content held in InnoCielo Meridian Enterprise with asset information held in asset management systems such as Maximo, Ultimo, Datastream and SAP PM.
This integration facilitates smooth collaboration between the engineering and maintenance departments — facility managers, space planners and plant maintenance professionals can manage and access as-built and change control records, helping to avoid lengthy infrastructure downtime, improve operational efficiencies, reduce risk and ensure regulatory compliance at reduced cost.
3. What advice can you give daratechPlant 2008 attendees who find themselves managing multiple projects?
With regard to the need to manage multiple projects simultaneously, daratechPLANT2008 attendees are invited to have a look at the new InnoCielo module for Advanced Project Workflow. This new module addresses the challenges faced by plant owners who often need to manage multiple concurrent projects with multiple contractors involved.
The InnoCielo Advanced Project Workflow module supports concurrent engineering with multiple contractors running multiple change projects by allowing and coordinating the use of the same data in multiple projects. Once the engineering content has been changed by the contractors it is sent back to the plant owner and updated in an as-built project. This means all relevant technical information is readily available to all parties involved from the start to finish of each project.
4. Project handover is an issue that daratechPlant attendees are increasingly looking at for improvement. How are your customers making headway in this area?
Project handover is indeed a need being addressed by the InnoCielo Advanced Project Workflow module. It allows plant owners and operators to exchange engineering content with contractors and sub-contractors during the engineering, procurement and construction phases of a project. At the building and commissioning phase, the engineering content is handed over to the plant owner and maintained in the as-built environment.
Another area related to project handover in a global engineering environment is the use of the InnoCielo Global Collaboration Framework. The InnoCielo GCF allows engineering companies to streamline their outsourcing, insourcing and offshoring activities. Project data is automatically shared and distributed among multi-disciplinary engineering teams using enlisted vaults. With one of our customers, a global manufacturing company, for example, the InnoCielo GCF enables engineers, designers and relevant personnel at 25 sites worldwide to collaborate as a single team regardless of location or time zone.
5. What other significant changes have you observed during the past few years, in the demands placed upon BlueCielo by its customers and prospects?
Besides the needs resulting from the trends mentioned above (globalization, interoperability and the management of multiple concurrent projects), we are seeing a growing need for standard solutions which support the critical business process of the client. Clients are less willing to accept and pay for customized solutions. The future will see software solutions (best practice business templates) that will address 80% of the client’s business process needs out of the box, with just the remaining 20% covered by configuration.
BlueCielo is spearheading this development with the InnoCielo Advanced Project Workflow module, which covers 80% of the needs of owner operators in the oil and gas industry. Another significant trend we are observing in the marketplace is a growing need for solutions that support compliance with regulations such as Safety, Health and Environment guidelines, which we are meeting with our tailored industry solutions for the life sciences,
utilities, and oil and gas sectors.
6. Which areas of your business are growing fastest, or are otherwise faring best in today’s business climate?
BlueCielo is experiencing high demand and interest in the oil and gas, life sciences and energy/utilities industries. Driven by the need for more operational efficiency, global collaboration and regulatory compliance these sectors show an increasing need for best practice solutions to manage engineering content during the asset lifecycle. BlueCielo focuses its development of best practice solutions on the needs of customers in these industries.