|
PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: VECO Corporation: The Team that Delivers® Project-oriented company stresses technology and talent Susan Braund Petroleum Directory Contributing Writer
Large or small, VECO clients can have it all: close-to-the-bone, hands-on management from a regional office and the expanded, in-depth expertise of a multi-national corporation.
Founded in 1968, VECO is the largest full-service engineering firm in Alaska. Known for its Arctic engineering expertise, the company provides services — project management, engineering, procurement, construction, operations and maintenance — to the energy, resource and process industries and the public sector.
“We’re definitely a project organization,” says company Vice President Tom Maloney, “every job is a project, first and foremost!”
In keeping with its project-oriented nature, VECO has been honing a new set of Project Management Guidelines that cover any project, engineering or construction, small or large, internal or external, domestic or international, to further ensure accuracy, consistency and dependability.
And, within every project is embedded a gem: a commitment to safety. VECO’s safety records are consistently outstanding, despite remote and repetitive work, long hours and extreme conditions.
“Safety remains one of our primary goals, if not the primary goal of every project we undertake,” stresses company Chairman and founder Bill Allen. “That means safety on the job for our workers and for those who contract with us, at every work site in every location where the VECO logo is posted!”
In fiscal year 2003, VECO USA Region had zero lost-time accidents. In March at the annual Governor’s Safety Conference in Anchorage, out of the 11 awards presented, VECO was the only company to be honored twice: once for efforts on the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. engineering contract (3.1 million hours from 1994 to the end of 2002 without a lost-time accident) and second, for BP Exploration (Alaska) operations and maintenance work on the North Slope (1.2 million hours without any lost time). The awards are given to companies who have demonstrated improved or sustained safety performance in their efforts in industry.
Local talent VECO is making headway against the Alaska “brain drain.” Frequently, better employment opportunities outside of Alaska beckon graduating college students, depriving the state of homegrown talent. Through various mentoring, internship and apprenticeship programs, VECO offers opportunities to high school and college students, and works with the University of Alaska Anchorage Engineering Department and Alyeska Pipeline’s Native Utilization agreement to attract Alaska Native employees.
“There are lots of opportunities here,” says Maloney. “We are certified to train apprentices in five crafts and welcome young talent with up-to-date technical skills in design and engineering.”
Alaskan sisters Jennifer and Christina Blake find their work at VECO stimulating. Both women graduated from Harvey Mudd College in California, Jennifer in chemistry and Christina in physics. “It’s pretty much an engineering and hard sciences school,” says Jennifer.
Christina, now an instrument engineer, has been with VECO for more than 10 years, initially working with a mentor, then working several internships and finally hiring on as a full-time facilities engineer after graduation. Jennifer, however, went to work for Intel in Portland, Ore., before her sister lured her back home and to VECO.
“At Intel, I worked as a mass production process engineer on the team that developed the Pentium III,” says Jennifer. “It was fascinating, but here at VECO there’s something new every day and there’s so much talent here … it’s very exciting.”
Christina likes the learning environment. “I’ve been able to work on many different projects, travel to the pump stations, actually go into the facilities and see how they work, which makes it easier to provide design with operations and maintenance in mind. VECO is committed to supporting long-time clients with long-term employees.”
Jennifer, now a process engineer, agrees: “VECO is trying to hire young talent to keep on staff, to ensure a good, core stable engineering force, and many of us have grown up here in Alaska.” Technology solutions Three ways that VECO is staying ahead of the technology curve are with its 3-D laser scanning capabilities, VECOmetrix/Smart Well Technology and documentation services.
3-D Laser Scanning Cyber sidekicks Mark Christenson and Steven Holmes are busy creating point clouds all over Alaska with VECO’s new Cyrax 3-D scanner. A point cloud looks like a detailed, colored rendering of a scene, but every point has an accurate 3-D position that can be viewed from any perspective, even during scanning. The technology can be used for reverse engineering, as-built information, interference detection, construction monitoring, surveying, historic preservation, and numerous other uses.
“With the Cyrax scanner you can instantly and accurately capture the complete surface geometry of a structure from any perspective,” says Rob Culbertson of VECO’s Project Services department. “A portable 3-D laser scanner sends out over a thousand points of light per second, then measures the time each point takes to return and creates a set of exact 3-D coordinates. These precise 3-D points can be converted into 3-D models, 2-D drawings or exported into CAD or other programs for further development. An entire site can be modeled in a matter of days instead of weeks, providing more detail than traditional methods at a comparable cost.”
Cyrax laser scanning can provide significant cost savings and benefits:
• Lower cost as-built and topographic surveys vs. conventional methods;
• Reduced return visits to the site for missing information;
• Better retrofit designs;
• Minimal field fit-up, field fabrication, and field rework; and
• Enhanced safety.
VECOmetrix The newly formed company, VECO Gas Technology Inc., is field testing and will be marketing VECOmetrix, a remote terminal unit control panel that is installed at natural gas wellheads and uses VECO-owned Smart Well Technology. The unit provides 24-7 real-time control to optimize gas production, based upon trends in the data gathered at the well. Potential benefits include: uplifts production; stabilizes production decline; and reduces operating expenses associated with the production of gas from natural gas wells.Document services As an ongoing reflection of VECO’s technology evolution, the company has aligned its technology teams by combining information technology, design technology and data management expertise into the VECO Technologies Group. The group includes electronic document and CAD systems integration and data management consulting services in addition to a full service digital reprographics operation.
“We’re using technology to manage information for project, operations and maintenance applications,” says Ted Hammett, project services manager, “Effective information management realizes value added results for VECO and our clients.”
With the EDDI documentation system VECO deployed for BP, anyone, anywhere, with access rights can share information, and more than one person can access it at once, according to April Smith, document services lead. “For one client, VECO provides web-enabled control and edit access to over 1.5 million engineering drawings.”
New VECO shop facility Over the years, VECO has shown its industry commitment by investing over $100 million at Prudhoe Bay. This year the company added a new $5 million, 36,000 sq. ft. equipment maintenance shop complex, expanding drilling support equipment and other services.
To provide and operate major mobile equipment supporting drilling rigs in Prudhoe Bay and Milne Point, on a new contract, the company added 47 new pieces of equipment to its fleet, including vacuum trailers, industrial vacuum loaders, bed tandems, lowboys, water trucks and tractors, at an estimated $500,000 each.
“VECO is willing to go the distance. There are challenges galore, and we all know that. We bump into them every day whether we’re fighting legislation battles on behalf of the Alaska natural gas pipeline and the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or whether we’re working with our clients to contain costs, meet construction goals, and bring projects to completion on time and under budget,” says Allen. ”I’m proud of the work our people do, everywhere VECO is on the job. And, I’m proud of the companies that believe in VECO and trust us to do the heavy engineering, construction and management contracts assigned to us.”
Editor's note: Susan Braund owns Firestar MediaServices in Anchorage, Alaska.
|
