A Comprehensive View on Information Management During the Life Cycle of Pipeline Assets

As we are dealing with the requirements of comprehensive information management for Pipeline Projects and assets, we want to introduce the term PIP (Pipeline Information Platform) as the concept of a GIS and RDBMS (Database) based architecture for the management of pipeline related information throughout the life-cycle of pipeline assets.

The inception and the development efforts of PIP have been driven by the necessities of information availability, avoidance of information redundancy and errors, standardization of systems and models, openness, usability for various workflows/business processes throughout the life-cycle of pipelines (design, procurement, construction and operation). The information models are prepared to handle different media (gas, oil, products, and water) and may also be adapted to specific project needs.
PIP defines the State-of-the-Art approach to deal with pipeline related information regarding model, technology and best practice for business/technical processes.

The PIP approach has been designed to make available all relevant Information (Objects and Events concerning a Pipeline) in their spatial or geographic and temporal Context together and to support relevant Business Processes of the Value Chain, to document, influence and control the relevant economic and technical aspects of the pipeline asset over time on the basis of relevant international standards (especially PODS)

PIP addresses the following challenges (but not limited to):
Flow of Information between different Processes is cumbersome, time- and cost-intensive and bears the risk of loss of information (digital – digital, digital – analogue)
Business Processes last longer, become more expensive and may produce inaccura-cies
Due to the nature of Pipeline Projects there might be some Versioning and Revisioning, which leads to even more complex flows and cyclic flows of information

The main goal of utilizing the PIP approach is the optimization and protection of resources, especially of all invesments which will be made into Data, Models and Systems (all 3 making up the Information) with the purpose of optimizing the design, procurement, construction and operation of the pipeline assets.
Managing information in a standardized and reusable platform will lead to savings throughout the upcoming phases and of course within all relevant (requested) business processes. Additionally the quality and availability of valid information will lead to savings within any process which needs accurate and up to date information.