Streamline Control x Midstream Energy Company: PI Convergence and Digital Infrastructure Advancement

The company managed nine separate PI Systems across North America, each supporting different business requirements and end user decision-making processes. These systems received data through approximately 30 PI Interfaces distributed across various business sites. The PI System architecture was a hybrid centralized system, comprised of eight individual systems located at various sites across North America and one centralized on-premises PI Server. Most of the PI System servers were operating on end-of-life operating systems, making their upgrade a key objective of the project.

The company’s PI System environment lacked consistency, with significant differences across sites in licensing, hardware, software, stability, cybersecurity, and overall management practices. These inconsistencies created several challenges, including:

• Software version and application lifecycle management issues
• Duplicate data stored at multiple sites
• Inconsistent security models
• Difficulty enforcing standardization
• Elevated licensing costs
• High support and infrastructure expenses
• Increased data management costs
  
  

To establish a clear direction for the PI Convergence project, the following activities were undertaken:

• Discovery Phase. Conducted a comprehensive assessment of the PI System architecture across various sites, including a thorough review of existing documentation. Assessment of third-party applications which integrate with the PI System.
• Centralized Architecture Design. Developed a centralized architecture based on the assessment findings and close collaboration with the company’s operations team. Determined all PI Server and Azure environment specifications.
• PI System Security. Collaborated with the operations team to establish PI System security, including Active Directory groups and display management, following AVEVA’s best practices. Windows’ single sign-on (SSO) was incorporated into the design.
• As-Built Documentation and Procedures. Created As-Built Documentation along with procedures to detail the construction of the centralized system.
• Project Execution Plan and Schedule. Created a detailed execution plan outlining the architecture build steps, implementation process, timelines, cutovers, deliverables, and milestones. Identified key project stakeholders and subject matter experts. Incorporated key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to monitor progress, with regular reviews to ensure alignment with goals and milestones.
• PI System Community of Practice. Established a PI System community of practice by engaging the company’s operations, the PI support and project teams. Scrum meetings followed an agile methodology, enabling parallel progress on multiple project action items.
• PI System Cutover Planning. Coordinated with operations to ensure a seamless transition for end users as individual sites were integrated into the centralized architecture.
• PI System Integration Cutover Planning. Collaborated with operations and subject matter experts to plan seamless cutovers for third-party applications integrating with the centralized PI System. Integration action items were managed in parallel with other project activities to optimize efficiency.
• Development Environment. The project team leveraged the development environment to stage and merge all individual PI Systems to the centralized architecture. This approach greatly reduced risks while ensuring no disruptions for end users using the PI System.
• Standardization. With the centralized PI System in place, the project team established standards and documentation aligned with AVEVA best practices. These standards included PI tag descriptions, units of measure, digital states, and PI Asset Framework templates
• Training. The project team developed training material and quick reference guides for end user reference.