Chevron

Chevron

With the installation of an EDM system looming, Chevron Corporation, one of the world's largest oil, gas and petrochemical producers, needed a top viewing and mark up solution fast. They needed to ensure staff could view and redline AutoCAD drawings in the simplest manner possible. At Warren petroleum's plant in Mont Belvieu, Texas and Chevron USA Production facilities in Evanston, Wyoming, personnel in technical maintenance, operations, and compliance had relied on the drafting department to retrieve and print drawings for them to complete markups. With the installation of Saros' Document Manager at these sites, up to 7,000 CAD drawings and related TIFF files, spreadsheets and word documents were now held in a central repository.

"Having eliminated our paper drawing environment at these plants, our field staff needed a way to view and print the latest AutoCAD drawings around the clock," explained John Purdin, who oversees Document
Management Applications for CPDN. The other challenge was to ensure employees could easily access, view and markup any document in the repository regardless of its file format. "We required one viewer that could
handle our wide variety of file formats," added Suzanne Plfuecke, CITC's Senior Applications Analyst.

After evaluating other viewers, Chevron implemented Cimmetry Systems' AutoVue Professional. There were several important considerations in the selection process: AutoVue had the ability to handle the formats
Chevron used including AutoCAD, Excel, DWG and TIFF. AutoVue also proved to have the speed to call up and render files quickly with an appreciable level of detail especially in terms of blackline preservation.

"Green Pasture Software, Inc.'s Edge had integrated AutoVue seamlessly with Saros from a redlining/markup point of view," explained Plfuecke. "The user interface screens were very intuitive. It was easy for our users to
understand its functionalities," commented Purdin.

"One of the most visible benefits so far has been in our drafting department," said Purdin. "Our drafting people can now concentrate on their work instead of spending time meeting requests to retrieve and print drawings," confirmed Plfuecke. Technical maintenance and operations personnel are now accessing and printing drawings faster through AutoVue. "With the viewer, they are annotating files and sending them back to the drafting department on-line without ever creating a piece of paper," said Purdin. "Most importantly, they can get drawings 24 hours a day, which is necessary in a plant operation, and be confident they are seeing the most up-to-date version."

Almost 130 seats will be in use by the end of the year at the Mont Belvieu and Evanston plants, but the viewer will be installed in other sites soon. "As Chevron continues its rollout of the Document Management system,
AutoVue will go with it," stated Purdin. There are plans to introduce AutoVue at Chevron's other production facilities and the viewer will be tested later this year in a pilot project at Chevron's pipeline company. AutoVue is also being considered for the company's Genesis Project, a $800 million offshore platform under construction in the Gulf of Mexico. According to Plfuecke, "We have recommended AutoVue as the guideline for the organization to follow because of its integrations, price and open API. From a viewing and distribution standpoint, AutoVue definitely meets our needs."