Solitaire Migration
The Solitaire is the largest pipelaying vessel in the world. At a speed of 9 kilometres a day, the ship is able to lay pipes with a maximum diameter of 60 inches on the seabed at a maximum depth of 2,775 metres. A fully automated on-board welding line is part of the primary process, and therefore also a highly critical part.
In order to assure the Solitaire’s leading position on the market, Allseas gave Cofely West Industrie the assignment of fully modernising the welding line automation system. Many years of cooperation, experience, knowledge and ensuing discussions gave Allseas sufficient confidence to grant the order to Cofely West Industrie.
The assignment included the replacement of DCS controllers, remote IO racks and the SCADA/HMI. All E-panels, frequency controllers and motion controllers were also renewed. The software was developed based on reverse engineering, with operation of the existing automation system used as the starting point. Cofely developed a software framework specially for this order to be able to satisfy the need for a very short turnaround time. Besides a structured and modular software design , this framework also allowed flexible responses to Allseas’ additional desires throughout the whole course of the project. The engineering of the panels and switchboards was carried out in a race against the clock to ensure that assembly could be started in time. This involved the anchorage of the Solitaire in Palermo for four weeks. In this period all the hardware (69 panels) was installed and tested in conjunction with the software. Flexible efforts and good cooperation between Allseas and Cofely kept the actual downtime to a minimum, with actual commissioning taking place during the sail to the first deployment.
The modernised automatic control of the welding line and the framework chosen offers Allseas the possibility of further optimising the welding process. Thanks to the Profinet network architecture applied, all information required on the condition of production resources (assets) can be directly collected and saved from the source.