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Introduction
Without context, "Industrial Gaming" give people
very different associations, so here is first some words about how
the Industrial Gaming initiative in StatoilHydro was
born.
The timing was overwhelmingly ready for taking
advantage of the technologies available from the gaming industry.
Functionality offered by the PC based game applications represented
possibilities to revolutionize the way industrial plants are run
and maintained, especially in a lifecycle
perspective..
Many of the operations in a modern plant are
complex and require multidisciplinary skills. Also, to be sure the
plant operations are executed safely, learning and training on
specific work operations must be part of the work preparations. The
training can take place in a virtual environment. Unwanted events,
accidents, fires and leaks can be trained for, without damage on
“real” persons or buildings.
Therefore, the combined knowledge and skills of
industrial plants engineers and game developers was anticipated to
have a great impact on finding new ways to design, run and maintain
industrial plants, be it land based facilities, offshore platforms,
or remote operated plants
The term “Industrial
Gaming”
The term “Industrial Gaming” was
intentionally constructed by Knut-Olav Fjell to indicate the
symbiosis of industrial competence and gamer developer knowledge.
It is necessary to “embed” industrial knowledge into
the game domain. Gamers are used to design a game story, which in
the industrial plant domain can be compared to designing a work
flow. Also, to make the training realistic, game technology can be
used to enhance the learning experience, measure an log progress
and make learning more fun.
The “gaming” part of the term might be
of considered to represent a risk element, or unserious approach to
running a plant. The concepts in Industrial Gaming will show the
contrary; that the incentive behind it is targeted, professional
and aims at running our plants in a safe and economical
manner.
Concept and implication
Industrial Gaming can be viewed as a specialised
version of "Serious Gaming" for specific use into the industrial
domain. For an application to be part of an Industrial Gaming
concept, the following requirements must at least be met
- the data must originate from the "as built"
approved CAD models
- the data conversion chain must be part of an
automated replication system
- data model content must be preserved in such
detail that all current maintenance operations can be illustrated
and trained for in VR
Use of 3D plant model data for specific work task
imply that more that the geometric CAD data to be part of the
conversion process into the PC-based game arena. Plant equipment
TAGs and mechanical object properties must also be part of the
conversion. Then, it is possible to start exploring the
possibilities of combining plant knowledge and game design
expertise.
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That's why we meet in
Trondheim, to tell each other how !
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