Increased project complexity in remote environments results in high capital project execution, increased risk, and costly schedule and budget overruns.
The 'Design One, Build Many' concept allows oil sands producers to standardize design to reduce capital costs and meet local regulatory requirements. Modularization from an automation system perspective can delay start up and create problems in operations, and for future scalability. The risks of ending up with disparate control systems, multiple databases, and non-standardized plant instrumentation are extremely high, and difficult to manage. Additionally, in this environment, and without a common automation platform, the cost of late changes can be punitive if a major redesign or change in the control system is required.
