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Nov. 5, 2003 -- The Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group (I&S) has received an order to equip the St. Francis power station in Missouri, USA, with the HybrixPower content management system.
The system manages all the power station's documentation and makes it available to the personnel via a uniform user interface. This will enable employees to gain rapid access to all the power station's important information.
At the same time, the effort expended on updating data and documents will be reduced by around 30 per cent. The project encompasses delivery, integration and start-up of the software solution as well as customer training. The complete system is to be handed over as early as the end of January 2004.
The St. Francis gas and steam turbine power station in the US state of Missouri has a power output of around 500 megawatts. Both power units were built by Siemens on a turnkey basis, one of which has been operating since January 2000 and the other since March 2001.
Siemens is also responsible for operating and maintaining the installation until the end of 2012. The owner is the Associated Electric Cooperative Inc., an amalgamation of regional power generation and distribution companies that supply power to around 780,000 customers in Missouri, Oklahoma and Iowa.
The power station's documentation consists of more than 10,000 documents, which exist in different data formats and sometimes even in paper form. Manual data transmission, the method previously used, was susceptible to human error, and looking for particular documents was a time-consuming activity. HybrixPower, in contrast, transfers the heterogeneous data to a homogeneous database automatically.
At the same time, the system reduces data duplication, stores the information in a structured manner and, thanks to a flexible navigation system, allows rapid access to all the relevant data. Important information is thus available everywhere at all times, such as when plant shutdowns occur, maintenance measures are carried out or safety-relevant aspects of plant operation are evaluated.
Fault signals, for example, are combined with a message text from the manuals and displayed. As a result of using HybrixPower, the operator expects greater efficiency in document access and higher availability of the power station as a whole.
HybrixPower stores and manages structured data records such as XML or SGML data as well as unstructured documents such as CAD, WORD or PDF files in a relational SQL database. Automatically generated hyperlinks create an information block from individual documents.
The solution, which is oriented to the structural organization of the power station, compiles individual document portfolios and uses semantic linking to make them available for online publication in a structured form. The user interface is in the form of a matrix and is therefore extremely easy to use. Mass data can be imported into HybrixPower via import interfaces and then linked automatically.
The operator is also provided with customized conversion programs for continuous adaptation of the documentation after operational changes and data updates, and for supporting inspections and maintenance activities. As a result, the data can be updated within just a few hours. Moreover, the partially qualified search for information is facilitated by full-text searching.
The Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group (I&S) provides solutions and services designed to improve competitiveness in processing and manufacturing industries and in infrastructure. Offerings cover the entire life cycle of industrial and infrastructure facilities, from consulting and planning through installation, operation, integration of MES-solutions, maintenance and modernization. In fiscal 2002 (to September 30) I&S employed a total of 28.400 people worldwide and achieved total sales of EUR 4.480 billion. Further information at: http:www.is.siemens.com
The Power Generation Group (PG) of Siemens AG is involved in the international power generation sector. Siemens Westinghouse Power Corporation (SWPC), headquartered in Orlando, Florida, is the regional business entity in the Americas. In fiscal 2002 (which ended September 30), Siemens PG posted sales amounting to EUR9.4 billion and received new orders totaling EUR10.6 billion. Group profit amounted to EUR1.582 billion. On September 30, 2002, Siemens PG had a workforce of around 26,000 worldwide. Further information at: http://www.siemens.com/powergeneration
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