Lloyd’s Register’s seamless move beyond R&D and into additive manufacturing is “business as usual”

Lloyd’s Register recently showcased its booth at the recently-concluded Offshore   Technology Conference Asia (OTC Asia) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The company is one of the world’s leading providers of professional services for engineering and technology, improving safety and increasing the performance of critical infrastructures for clients in over 75 countries worldwide.

Hussain Quraishi, Strategic Products Lead at Lloyd’s Register’s Global Technology Centre in Singapore, spoke on the topic of additive manufacturing (AM), with his presentation titled “Additive Manufacturing: Certifying the future” at the conference.

“While other assurance bodies are just beginning to learn about AM, Lloyd’s Register has moved beyond the R&D phase and into AM as ‘business as usual,’” said Quraishi, who focuses on working with clients and strategic partners for Lloyd’s Register’s Global AM business across Asia. “The partnerships and joint industry projects we have started over four years ago have given us a deep understanding of the technology and allowed us to assist early movers with end-to-end assurance.”

One key partnership is with TWI, one of the world’s leading research and tech firms focusing on materials joining and engineering processes. Combined with the knowledge of TWI’s 20 years studying AM, the two parties produced “Guidance Notes for the Certification of Metallic Parts made by Additive Manufacturing,” a goal-based framework that helps manufacturers in any field add assurance to their AM processes, providing a pathway to certification across industries, including nuclear, oil and gas, and marine classification.”

A major first for the oil and gas industry

The world’s first certified oil and gas component qualified under the framework was produced by the Safer Plug Company in the UK. Not only is it unique because of its certification, but it could not have been produced by conventional subtractive manufacturing. Lloyd’s Register has also qualified the first AM facilities in Singapore and in the UK.

Part certification is only one aspect of the Lloyd’s Register’s suite of AM solutions. Lloyd’s Register offers training around operationalising for additive manufacturing, facility qualification and material certification, e.g. EN_10204 and Classification Standards.

Deriving value from connected assets without compromising security

Lloyd’s Register also approached the question: How to derive value from connected assets without compromising security?

Lloyd’s Register is focused on working with marine and offshore companies of all sizes to co-create leading bespoke solutions, enabling them to optimise efficiency in operations, asset performance and maintenance, reduce risk and improve safety while offering increased transparency to stakeholders.

At the forefront of the safe adoption of digital technologies within the marine and offshore sector, Lloyd’s Register has pioneered a ‘total-systems’ approach, with a number of industry firsts developed to help a wide range of stakeholders navigate the huge opportunities for improving efficiency and performance – but also the various security and safety challenges posed.

Recognising the need to go further than ensuring the safe integration of cyber technology, Lloyd’s Register’s Global end-to-end set of solutions addresses the need to keep people, assets and systems secure within the constantly changing cyber security landscape.

Lloyd’s Register’s Global Marine & Offshore Director, Nick Brown, said: “We are working with our clients to develop a cyber risk management plan specifically tailored to their business and operational needs, with the aim to embed cyber security seamlessly within their organisation.”

“We recognise the importance of having the best capabilities, so have chosen to work with QinetiQ, a leading science and engineering company operating primarily in the defence, security and aerospace markets. Through this unique partnership, we can bring the benefits of QinetiQ’s world-leading cyber security skills, knowledge and experience, to complement our own expertise in marine and offshore risk management,” he said further.

From guidance and training to vulnerability and impact assessment Lloyd’s Register can help clients develop a cyber security strategy that will work for their business now and in the future, ensuring readiness to operate cyber-enabled assets safely and securely.

Once security has been assured, the biggest challenge associated with data from multiple systems and connected assets is in understanding how to turn the possibilities into actual commercial and operational value. It is now possible to amass more data more easily but with so much data available, extracting useful and actionable information and insights is a challenge.

Lloyd’s Register’s Global analytics capability under the ‘Cyber Perform’ step of Lloyd’s Register’s Global cyber and digital transformation services spans from the deployment of the platform at vessel or fleet level to shore-side decision-making support.

The approach provides the right tools to embed data-driven insights within an organisation, complementing existing processes and procedures and providing the opportunity to centralise all data sources into one consolidated data view. Lloyd’s Register’s Global world-class engineering knowledge is translated into advanced data analytics, underpinned by a pioneering and secure Connected Assets Big Data Platform powered by partner, QiO Technologies.

This platform is supported by Lloyd’s Register’s Global industry-recognised software, such as real-time adaptive maintenance optimisation service and software (RTAMO), asset management optimisation service and software (Axxim) and loading and stability software (LR Seasafe), as well as by partnerships with leaders such as the cloud-based ship management software provider, Hanseaticsoft.

Lloyd’s Register’s Global methodology moves the client through the following seamless journey:Power and potential of data (understanding, identifying and assessing the data a client has and what it can help them achieve), defining data strategies (a robust and practical plan for achieving the desired technical, operational and commercial outcomes); enabling data analytics (providing a powerful, scalable platform to help consolidate operational data from assets with other data to give a fully integrated view, enabling powerful analytics to derive actionable insights); providing value (quickly piloting solutions and demonstrating the benefits of data); deployment (working with the client to scale from pilots to fully functional solutions across their business and lastly: Continuous improvement (a long-term partnership that keeps the solution relevant, reliable and secure).

(EOG)

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