Subsea 7 enhances incident-response capabilities

London – Subsea 7 offers seabed-to-surface engineering, construction and support services to the offshore energy industry worldwide, via a fleet comprising over 40 vessels, supported by 1200 engineers located at offices around the world.

The company frequently undertakes projects in remote and hostile environments and the need for effective incident management is essential to the smooth operation of the business.

Subsea 7 historically managed its emergency response utilising a paper-based process, which required employees to log all relevant information on paper forms from the emergency response room. These would then be passed and arranged by a chronological logger on notice boards in the main emergency room.

Whilst the process enabled control and management of an incident it also meant that the main emergency response room was available to all personnel regardless of their discipline relating to the ongoing incident. Moreover, the system did not enable the information leaving the room to be filtered and approved.

To improve incident management across its extensive global operations, Subsea 7 introduced a software-based system from AI ControlPoint, which helps it to react to emergencies as well as to monitor and track vessels that are working in high-risk environments.

“In the event of an incident onboard the vessel, where communications may be lost, it is critical that Subsea 7 has a sufficient record of where the vessel was prior to the event to enable the company to react to the situation,” explains Robin Davies, vice president, business improvement at Subsea 7.

With the adoption of AI ControlPoint, Subsea 7 has reviewed its existing processes and developed them beyond the original scope.

“We took everything we were doing in our current incident management process and put that to one side. We said ‘okay what do we actually want to achieve from this process, rather than what are we limited to?’,” Davies said.

AI ControlPoint’s SaaS (software as a service) has helped Subsea 7 to improve the effectiveness of people interaction and reduce response times during an incident. It is no longer necessary to have all the incident responders physically located in one emergency response room: they can login from wherever they are in the world using various devices including their smartphones.

“Should incidents arise both onshore and offshore, we [are now] able to manage them very successfully with all relevant personnel having visibility of the critical information,” Davies commented.

Subsea 7 can also define user roles for pre-configured incident types, with each role automatically provided with the relevant information. As Davies explains: “A lot of people can be involved with an incident and they may only be required for one particular element.

“Previously everyone would have to be in the room or ferried information and this could be distracting and had the potential to lead to mistakes.

“Now everyone is given the information that is relevant to them as it becomes available, and this enables people to focus on their job and the situation in hand for the area they are responsible.”

Subsea 7 also used AI ControlPoint to carry out regular emergency-response tests with across its global offices.

“We carry out a full emergency response test and irrespective of where our staff are in the world they are able be a part of this process,” said Davies. “This has resulted in our people being extremely well trained and confident to handle any situation.

”AI ControlPoint provides a full review of both test and live incidents enabling companies to continuously enhance and develop their incident management process.”

Subsea 7 has also enhanced the detail and timing of information it provides to partners and clients, keeping them continuously informed about the progress of a situation.

Davies cites an example, where Subsea 7 had to send a vessel to investigate an incident at a client’s operation: “The crew of the vessel was able to take images and provide information through AI ControlPoint, which we in turn were able to provide to our client by granting access to the system. [This] enabled effective visibility of the situation for everyone involved.”