Digital
The oil and gas industry is piping in on GIS,
micro-geolocation and mapping,
as Edward Nugent, PcVue, Inc., USA, reports.
EVOLUTION
W
hile computer-based technologies from the Internet of Things (IoT) to geographical
information systems (GIS), indoor positioning systems (IPS) and web mapping services
(WMS) have become pervasive in our world especially in retail, commercial and
government applications. We are now starting to now see other industries like oil and
gas and other energy sectors pick up the pace in applying these technologies to their advantage.
Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) has been a staple technology in monitoring a
wide array of oil and gas, offshore/onshore and pipeline operations. New approaches combining
automated mapping/facilities management (AM/FM-GIS) with SCADA are bringing about innovations
for the field operators and mobile maintenance workers.
System interoperability with open communications automation framework is critical to enabling
new technologies to be integrated into existing SCADA systems. The key is in integrating global
positioning system (GPS) and indoor location services via micro-geolocation in smart and meaningful
ways with SCADA to derive value from knowing the precise location of people and assets in order to
make better decisions. Doing more with less by leveraging resources in more innovative ways to get
the job done faster, easier, more safely and with a bigger pay back is the name of the game.
SCADA evolution
From the late 1970s to early 1980s, SCADA vendors were more insular, developing their own
proprietary modules to suit the needs of their marketplace. It began to change in the mid to late
1990s when human-machine interface (HMI), communications and telemetry systems would advance
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