Digitalisation: The New Frontier of Project Delivery

To enable the energy transition, our industry must also embrace a digital transition to achieve a sustainable energy economy and drive operational excellence across the entire life cycle of all assets.

In the 1900s, car manufacturer Ford scaled up efficiencies and introduced the moving assembly line to create the Model T, or "tin Lizzie", which is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile. This revolutionised vehicle production around the world.

Much like Ford’s Model T, digital tools can be used to create connected solutions and transform the way energy is delivered globally. Ford’s Model T influenced the “machine age”, but now we’re in the “digital age”.

In the current cost and climate conscious environment, digital tools are truly transforming the project delivery landscape. They can be applied across any sector and asset, offering an invaluable way to streamline workflow, enable collaboration and make informed decisions within shorter timeframes.

There are an abundance of revolutionary and untapped digital tools at our fingertips that can enable us to work smarter and become more agile. But how do we adapt? For the digital revolution to reach its full potential, it must be adopted across the entire industry.

When it comes to project delivery, harvesting data is key; the digital environment allows us to analyse in real time and improve on projects via a constant flow of data and digital trends, bringing engineering solutions to the next stage of life with little to no engineering rework needed across all phases. We’re meeting project milestones on time and to budget.

With increased digitalization, we can keep up with emerging client concerns, cross-check and improve project data, drive out inconsistencies and identify trends before they become critical issues.

This increased efficiency not only allows the ability to tackle twice as many projects- it also provides the additional time and robust digital roadmap needed to focus on improving processes currently in place. From lightening administrative loads to compiling and cross-checking data from all projects, the digital environment enables the industry to execute work more efficiently and unlock more energy resource opportunities.

At Wood we have found that embracing a fully digital handover, or digital twin, is invaluable with cost-value more than doubling with each system added. Embracing digitalisation and reorienting business operations enables our clients to emerge as the powerhouses of the future as we deliver the sustainability solutions the world needs together.

Digital transformation is also supporting the viability of renewables projects decades earlier than expected, allowing infrastructure to be built faster with data archived from pre-existing projects. Achieving a sustainable future is one of the biggest challenges facing our generation, and connected technology, data and low-carbon solutions are key to building towards a net-zero world.

To find out more about how businesses are trusting Wood to help them step into a digital future, learn about our work with Chevron Anchor.