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Data Management Solutions for Process Industries and Utilities

Hagerman & Company

Utilities and companies involved in process-oriented industries such as chemicals, basic metals, food products, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals or other mass produced products, can have very different and broader needs in regard to data management than those involved in discrete manufacturing and product design.

While there is some overlap with the latter type of organization, for utilities and process industries, typically these needs fall into four key areas:

  • Basic document management for all types of files
  • Engineering change management (including CAD integration) and project management
  • Collaboration with outside engineering firms and contractors
  • Asset management including linking maintenance/equipment records to associated drawings and documents

As many of you already know, Hagerman & Company offers three main solutions for data management: Autodesk® Vault, Synergis Adept and BlueCielo Meridian. Each of these products has the ability to address some or all of these areas with BlueCielo Meridian offering a full suite of tools to address all four. While it can in some cases be somewhat higher in price than the other solutions, BlueCielo may be well worth it for companies who have a strong need or desire to implement the most robust solution available. Below, I will highlight some of the key areas of strength and differentiation for BlueCielo Meridian.

In the area of engineering change management, BlueCielo includes a set of features called “Managed Change” that allows you to create project folders outside of the “main area” of a vault to contain in-progress documents. Those documents are called “project copies” and are made from and linked to master documents that reside elsewhere in the vault. Master documents can be considered as-built documents and will remain available as-is to service and maintenance personnel. The project copies are kept separate from the as-builts and can be sent out as needed to outside engineering firms for modification, modified by in-house engineers, routed through review and approval cycles, etc. When the engineering project is complete, the project copies can be automatically released back to the main area of the vault where they become the new as-built copies.

In addition, BlueCielo offers an Advanced Project Workflow module. It has additional advanced features, including support for managing documents in overlapping concurrent projects, advanced workflows, additional reporting, etc.

All three of the systems we offer will work in conjunction with Autodesk Buzzsaw (and other tools) for outside-the-firewall collaboration with engineering firms and contractors. In addition, BlueCielo offers their own SharePoint Project Portal which, as its name implies, is based on the popular Microsoft SharePoint platform. The Project Portal can be either installed locally or cloud-based. In addition, it can be used standalone, without BlueCielo Meridian, or integrated so that organizations have totally seamless workflows and automation between Meridian and the Portal.

Finally, the Asset Management Module from BlueCielo enables Meridian users to expand their engineering data management solution into a full asset information management system. Unique asset identifiers (tag numbers) allow users to immediately access related documents through search or through full integration with maintenance systems including SAP-PM, Maximo, Ultimo, Datastream, Famis, Archibus and others.

Our goal at Hagerman & Company is to work with each customer to help them determine which solution is best for them, rather than having a single system or platform that we push for everyone. If you would like to learn more about any of these solutions, we would love to hear from you.

Submitted by Matt Lane, Director of Consulting Services, Hagerman & Company, Inc.

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