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Vol. 20, No. 40 Week of October 04, 2015
Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry

Arctic Directory October 2015: aeSolutions, superior process safety engineering and automation solutions

Going above and beyond in its mission of consistent performance and project execution since 1998

Q. What is the official name of your company?

A. aeSolutions

Q. Is your firm a subsidiary or affiliate of other companies? If so, please name those firms and their relationship to your company.

A. Our registered names are Applied Engineering Solutions and AE Solutions Alaska, LLC, but we do business as aeSolutions.

Q. What do you most want people to know about your company?

A. Industrial Process Safety and integrated automation solutions.

Q. Where is your company located?

A. Headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina with regional offices in Anchorage, Alaska and Houston, Texas

Q. What year was the company founded and by whom?

A. Founded in 1998 by Mike Scott, Ken O’Malley, and Brian Merriman

Q. What is your company’s primary business activity?

A. aeSolutions is a complete supplier of performance-based process safety engineering and automation solutions. To fulfill a mission of continuously improving the safety performance of the process industry, we utilize proven processes to help ensure consistent project execution and help customers optimize production, quality, and safety. aeSolutions is committed to providing engineering services that enable our clients to sustainably own, operate, and maintain their process facilities.

Q. Are there important projects the company is currently a part of or has done recently?

A. We are currently providing certified Burner Management Systems (BMS) and Fire & Gas Systems (FGS) to Alaskan upstream customers in classified areas based on safety best in class hardware platforms. These projects include engineering, systems integration, and installation supervision.

Q. How many employees does your company have?

A. We have 162 employees which includes: Professional team formed by more than 40 CFSE/CFSP/TUV/PE certified professionals and more than 30 ISA-trained professionals; Thought leaders in functional safety and industrial cybersecurity lifecycle management and automation solutions; Principals are voting members of IEC 61511, 61508, and 62443; (5) ISA certified instructors; ISA S84 fire & gas working group chair; ISA safety division chair.

Q. Describe the equipment your company uses and are there any new equipment purchases planned?

A. For our system integrated (SI) products, we are platform independent and will implement the PLC or DCS of the client’s choice. Our expertise lies in the application. For most systems, we maintain systems that we can simulate the client’s field equipment, for service agreement and field maintenance troubleshooting, also safe and productive operations. aeSolutions recently obtained NNNY and NRBX UL listings certifying industrial control panels for use in hazardous locations and shipped their first NNNY listed Burner Management System (BMS) panels to an oil and gas customer in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.

Q. Is your company expanding any of its operations or locations?

A. Yes, we are increasing our footprint in Houston and have recently added sales representation in Denver to cover West coast operations. This allows us full coverage of all Contiguous States.

Q. Is the company changing any of its services or products?

A. No, we feel that a solid safety-based foundation allows us to service an area that clients need the most help in navigating. Continuing this safety-based experience into automation implementation sets us apart from our competition.

Q. What is your company’s main strength or its edge over the competition?

A. Performance safety-based approach to automation.

Q. What new markets, clients or projects did your company attract in the last year?

A. We are expanding our efforts into the front-end engineering for automation projects. We find our clients need the help to define systems properly upfront to minimize the surprises during implementation and commissioning. We have been called upon to cleanup some competitors projects since they did not understand the entire lifecycle requirements to safety-based automation.

Q. What is the most challenging work/contract the company has undertaken? 

A. We had a client with a gas processing plant where the automation company could not complete the project due to the inexperience in total system design, including safety instrumented systems (SIS), fire and gas systems (FGS) and basic process control systems (BPCS). We came in and determined where the systems were deficient. To correct the problem, we actually had to remove a couple of the systems to rewire and reprogram them, to provide the appropriate functionality. We corrected the system issues and worked harmoniously with the client through commissioning. We currently have a technical services agreement (TSA) to provide the technical assistance in running the plant.

Q. What are the biggest obstacles to completing work your company undertakes?

A. Definition. Defining the requirements of the process and then mapping the automation to execute the process safely and efficiently to create value for the client.

Q. What do you see as your company’s biggest challenge in the next five years?

A. Training our staff. We need to continually invest in training to ensure our employees have the knowledge to provide our clients value. We focus this by investing in classroom, field and even pairing our senior engineers with junior team members to pass knowledge along.

Q. What is your company’s safety record? What steps does the company take to ensure a safe work environment?

A. All aeSolutions locations reported zero lost-time accidents in 2014. This is the second consecutive year that aeSolutions has posted zero lost-time accidents company-wide.

The aeSolutions 14,000 sq. ft. complete panel fabrication facility, which assembles and ships large control panel systems, received the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce Safety Award.

Q. Has your company been involved in any community projects or charity events?

A. aeSolutions sponsors a team every year to participate in the Alaska Special Olympics Polar Plunge in Anchorage and all offices participate in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Light the Night Walk and Fundraiser in addition to supporting the American Heart Association.

Q. What is the address of your company’s Web site?

A. www.aesolns.com



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