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Enovia

Oil patch component manufacturer finds solution to lock down data

T3 Energy of Houston, TX, relies on 3D CAD software to design its oil and gas components, but as it branched out to distant locations, the company faced challenges in how to manage and secure sensitive data.

Danny Wolfe, T3’s engineering manager for pressure control products, saw the remote branches’ CAD databases grow continuously, but the company had no enterprise system by which to integrate and unify them all.

To address these challenges, T3 Energy, with the help and guidance of consulting partner Razorleaf, selected Enovia SmarTeam from Dassault Systèmes.

T3 Energy designs, manufactures, and repairs components to control wells for oil and gas installations for the Gulf Coast of the United States, Mexico, Canada, and other nations. The company has more than 600 employees located at multiple sites across North America, the Middle East, and Asia, and works with suppliers and partners worldwide.

The goal was to use SmarTeam to meet the company’s need for multiple data vaults serving the various locations. The multi-CAD capabilities were compatible with T3 Energy’s existing 3D CAD system. T3 also uses SmarTeam to maintain part, model, drawing and assembly relationships while improving revision control.

One useful key feature is the check-in and check-out feature which ensures that all users, regardless of location, have access to the latest version and that no changes are overwritten accidentally. Bill of Material (BOM) management and reporting is another key capability. T3 has 23 sites and six product lines incorporating Enovia SmarTeam and inter-branch communication is a priority.

T3 Energy began the implementation in steps.

“We started the implementation process with the Pressure Control Group,” Wolfe said. “As it became clear that our processes were well-defined, we methodically moved on to another product line, and so on.”

He said the same approach — micro-mastering each department’s deployment process before moving on — was used with view-only users, including T3’s manufacturing, sales and quality control teams. These users rely on SmarTeam’s Navigator Web interface, an intuitive capability.

“We find the remote access feature especially beneficial,” Wolfe said. This interface makes product data widely available throughout the company.

The BOM reporting associates individual items of data with any related files. The functionality caters to T3 Energy’s unique needs by creating a report that is an amalgamation of items and document specifications, with parts and their related documentation (MS Word documents, CAD drawings, and more) put together in one hierarchy.

Because the same code used to create the BOM report can also distribute metadata (data about data) across T3’s ERP systems, dual entry of data is no longer necessary, Wolfe said.

T3 Energy hopes to continue to roll out the implementation to apply to all of its revision-controlled documents. According to Wolfe, the product data management deployment will continue in phases until departments such as legal, manufacturing, and human resources have adopted the solution.

The company will use SmarTeam to store and manage data for mapping its ISO/APQ1 quality system. T3 Energy will use the product’s “items” function to symbolize physical parts, eliminating the need for its current document-focused approach.

Eventually, the company would like to integrate its CNC milling machines into the general implementation to make sure that all design revisions available to the manufacturing floor are accurate and up-to-date. This will prevent possible errors and will reduce costs accordingly.

Wolfe said Enovia SmarTeam has proved worth its cost and is providing substantial ROI to the company. He said that considering that some of T3’s components weigh upwards of 20,000 pounds, getting designs right the first time can prevent mistakes that would cost the company $10,000 to $20,000.

Dassault Systèmes