Moon landing for engineering
‘With EB, we are finally working in a truly data-driven manner across all engineering phases and disciplines on one data model!’ emphasized Keller-Larsen. The migration to the platform is Topsoe’s largest IT transformation project to date. ‘Our moon landing, so to speak’, said the top IT Manager. As a knowledge base for everyone involved, EB supports projects from their "birth" to the very end and offers customers a continuous customer journey. Furthermore, EB standardizes Topsoe’s system environment and engineering; numerous discipline-specific tools have been replaced. ‘With them, this transformation would never have been possible. As a single source of truth, EB also lays the foundation for AI use.

Partner rather than supplier
The (petro)chemical professionals attached great importance to having to order as few special solutions as possible for their engineering ideal. Thus, EB was chosen. ‘However, today’s platform differs from how it was at the start of the partnership with Haldor Topsoe’, said Aucotec Executive Officer Uwe Vogt. The partnership led to the joint creation of several new developments that are important efficiency drivers for EPCs, plant engineers and operators, such as EBML for faster data exchange or the automatic data sheets of Asset 360. ‘Both are now part of the standard in EB’s plant license, thus they benefit all customers’, reported Vogt with a touch of pride. Furthermore, Keller-Larsen added: ‘We wanted a partner, not a supplier. The implementation and pilot project have shown that this has been successful.’

Six weeks instead of six months
‘The transformation process was complex and very democratic. Never before have we brought together so much expertise and knowledge’, said Keller-Larsen. Everyone had to rethink, but they now have a uniform "data home" for the entire engineering and maintenance tasks. This increases flexibility and saves around 10% of costs. Due to considerable acceleration – some work now takes six weeks instead of six months – significantly more projects will be able to be created within the same time in the future according to Niels Keller-Larsen.

Haldor Topsøe is a global leader in supply of catalysts, technology, and services to the chemical and refining industries. Topsoe aims to be the global leader within carbon emission reduction technologies by 2024. By perfecting chemistry for a better world, the company enables its customers to succeed in the transition towards renewable energy. Topsoe is headquartered in Denmark and serves customers around the globe. The company has 2,100 employees and achieved revenue of approximately 6,200 billion DKK in 2020. (www.topsoe.com)