Standardizing Offshore Installation Processes

Lessons Learned from London Array

Company / Unternehmen: Siemens Wind Power
Speaker / Referent: Poul Martin
Position: Head of Offshore Project Management

Abstract:
The offshore wind industry is gradually moving towards an industrial model to lower costs, allowing competition with conventional power technologies. Industrialization of turbine manufacturing has already been well documented however the standardization of project installation processes is delivering significant productivity gains for Siemens Wind Power (SWP). The London Array Project, soon to be the world’s largest offshore wind power plant with a capacity of 630 MW provides an excellent case study highlighting the methods SWP is implementing during installation to save time and money and ensure high quality. During the London Array timeline, each and every process between the manufacturing of components to the testing of installed turbines was isolated and analyzed in order to identify areas where cost and time savings could be achieved. The project team compiled a 170 page document detailing exactly requirements of when a finished component can in fact be considered ‘complete’. The customers of London Array were intimately involved in the creation of these standards. By recording completion standards and expected time-frames for each of these processes the company is able to benchmark its performance in terms or quality and time and then apply this to future projects.

Whenever feasible, all work has been reassigned further up the production line. This ensures a safer work environment for technicians not to mention that costs are estimated to be ten times
higher in pre-assembly than the production facilities and then another ten times higher when working offshore.

The London Array project has provided the ideal testing ground for these initiatives. Several further project innovations have been developed to improve SWP’s
logistical setup. A pressing need to reduce costs and increase efficiency is key for the continued success of the offshore wind industry, we at SWP hope to share more of our solutions at Windforce 2013.