Collaborating with RIVAL gives peace of mind

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RIVAL actively takes on responsibility for the development and the production of advanced components. An important and valuable customer in the oil and gas industry appreciates this, and it builds the foundation for developing the collaboration.

Over the years, RIVAL has had a good and steady collaboration with a leading company in the oil and gas industry regarding the development and production of components to the company’s product, which works several kilometres under the surface of the sea. Very specific demands are made to quality, precision and reliability of delivery in this regard.

RIVAL’s long-time group manager and recently become project manager Torben Pedersen has been working with this customer from the beginning of the collaboration. During a longer period, he has worked intensively to refine measurements, tolerances and choice of processing methods to the customer’s components.

Curiosity leads to valuable knowledge
“We are always curious about our customers’ businesses and their projects. It is interesting to know, how they will make use of the components, we produce, in the end,” Torben says. “By knowing that, we can also easier secure that the components meet with the demands and needs, the individual customer has.”

“In this regard, the collaboration with the customer is an important factor. All our customers have a unique knowledge about their particular component and its’ use,” Torben says. “We offer a professional knowledge “from the outside”, we take a closer look on drawings and tolerances, and we ask the clarifying questions to make sure, we process the component appropriately – in terms of both quality and price. We know by experience that our professional knowledge means a great deal to the customer,” he says.

Putting things out in the open
As part of the close collaboration between the customer and RIVAL, things must be put out in the open and problems are articulated and solved immediately by the responsible employees. This is efficient and educational for both partners in the collaboration. At the same time, it helps ensuring high quality and delivery reliability.

RIVAL ensures peace of mind
The collaboration with RIVAL and the employees’ efforts are much appreciated by the customer’s purchasing manager, who has recently visited RIVAL. “I leave RIVAL with peace of mind, because they clearly have full control over the production of our components,” he says. “We are learning from each other’s companies, and this continuously develops and refines our collaboration.”

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Engagement and inquisitiveness cause top level solutions

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The employees at RIVAL have a great inquisitiveness and interest in the components, they work on. That means, they give competent feedback to the customers and they make an effort to improve the ideas and solutions.

“My colleagues are very inquisitive and truly interested in knowing how the components, they process, will operate – perhaps several hundred metres under the surface of the sea or 150 metres up in the air,” group manager Torben Pedersen says. “That gives us the opportunity to provide the customer with inputs that can optimise the production and cause new points of view on solutions.”

Development projects with strict non-disclosure agreements
Several of the development project, RIVAL is engaged in, are very secret and have strict NDA demands. That applies to one of RIVAL’s recent agreements with a big wind turbine manufacturer. “We will contribute to develop brand-new components to the wind turbines of the future,” Torben says. “The customer’s engineers, who work on the development tasks, have a very theoretical approach to the job, which is a crucial competence in the initial work. However, our practical approach and knowledge can help transforming theoretical ideas into a production. Often, that give rise to new perspectives and solutions.”

Order in chaos
Often, the customer hasn’t completed the development projects, when RIVAL is involved. That could mean, the customer doesn’t have an overview of the procedure, which can result in continuous updates of tolerances, demands and drawings.

The employees at RIVAL need to keep a cool head in the “chaos” and maintain the overview of the situation, which they have lots of experience with. It happens in close cooperation with the customer’s engineers, and thereby they secure an ongoing optimisation of all elements in the project.

We consider the details – and the economy
“We have built a great experience in always studying the details of the drawing to a component as well as considering potential flaws, which can ultimately result in the component not living up to the customer’s demands and expectations. It means the world to our customers that we help quality assuring the process,” Torben says. “Furthermore, we bear the cost reduction in mind. If strict tolerances are not crucial for the component, maybe we can lower those and most likely reduce the costs. That is important knowledge to our customers, and they appreciate that we offer it to them. Actually, we can’t stop doing that.”

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LORC Nacelle Testing

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Items used to test wind turbines require spikes of excellence

For a number of years, RIVAL has been a regular supplier to the demanding wind and oil and gas industries and has excellent ongoing collaboration with the engineering firm R&D.

Right now, RIVAL is busy processing some large steel plates to be used in the foundation for a nacelle test bench at the LORC Nacelle Testing project at Lindoe Offshore Renewables Centre. The test centre is being constructed at the former shipyard, now Lindoe Industripark. Here, some of the world’s most advanced facilities will be available for testing wind turbine nacelles of up to 10 MW. The test centre is expected to be ready in 2014.

Valuable supplier
RIVAL is part of the project as a sub-supplier to the engineering firm R&D. R&D is producing the nacelle test bench in collaboration with the GE consortium partner in the LORC project. “I need a business partner who can take full responsibility for the items to be produced,” says Senior Project Manager Kent Frank Pedersen from R&D. “In this regard, I have found a good match in RIVAL, who not only has solid skills in the processing of items for e.g. the offshore industry but also assumes full
project responsibility for aspects such as welding, annealing and surface treatment carried out by their sub-suppliers.”

Mutual benefit
R&D is a project management and consulting engineering firm specialising in mechanical and software solutions for the industry. R&D offers everything from the development of production of test equipment and system commissioning to employee training and straight-forward advice and consultancy services. In the case of R&D and RIVAL, this collaboration benefits both parties. R&D typically uses RIVAL as a sub-supplier in connection with offshore industry jobs, and RIVAL uses R&D’s engineering skills in connection with specialised tasks requiring development of specific machinery, software or other types of equipment. RIVAL has thus recently chosen to involve R&D in a job for the wind turbine industry, where there was a special need for R&D’s engineering skills as an excellent adjunct to RIVAL’s own skills.

Lives up to expectations
Kent Frank Pedersen has now collaborated with RIVAL for just over four years, and he is very satisfied with the collaboration.
“RIVAL lives up to all the expectations I had from the beginning,” says Kent. “The company has a good reputation for solid processing skills, especially for large items. In addition, they take full project responsibility for the individual items, which fits in really well with the kind of jobs we have.”

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Components with Complete Documentation to NOV

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Components with Complete Documentation to National Oilwell Varco

 

Close collaboration regarding the production, quality control tests and documentation are crucial elements of RIVAL’s successful multi-year partnership with National Oilwell Varco’s (NOV) Norwegian division.

During the last couple of months, RIVAL has produced top-site equipment to pipe management on oil drilling rigs, completed function and pressure tests of all components before shipment to Norway and devised complete documentation.

Close collaboration with the quality responsible
The work has been accomplished in collaboration with NOV’s quality responsible, who has paid RIVAL several visits. “NOV’s demands on quality and documentation are severe,” says production manager Søren Djursland, who has been in charge of the daily communication with NOV. “When we handle components, which are critical and costly, and which are going to be mounted onto the oil drilling rigs, there is no room for mistakes. When the components are delivered, everything must be in perfect order.”

Complete documentation
The demands on documentation are severe, for which reason every component to the oil drilling rig includes 500 pages of documentation. “Contrary to expectations, if a mistake occurs, it is crucial that the people in charge of the rig can find details on the produced component quickly,” says Søren. For that matter, Søren Djursland has devised and prepared 500 pages to each of the 10 components.

“The job has been very interesting, but demanding,” says Søren. “I have made more than one version to every component as a result of some very specific detail demands to the material from NOV, which were not fulfilled at first. However, at this moment we have lots of experience with meeting these demands, for which reason we are very suited for the following jobs.”

”Det har været et meget interessant og krævende arbejde,” siger Søren. ”Jeg har lavet mere end én version til hvert emne, da der i første omgang var nogle helt specifikke detailkrav til materialet fra NOV, som ikke var opfyldt. Vi har nu fået opbygget rigtig gode erfaringer med netop at følge disse og er klædt rigtigt godt på til de kommende opgaver.”

Onsite test
Som en del af aftalen med NOV har RIVAL også gennemført onsite test af alle emnerne inden afsendelsen til Norge. ”For at kunne gennemføre både funktions- og tryktest opbyggede vi en specifik testinstallation til netop disse emner,” siger Søren. ”Det krævede eksempelvis, at vi måtte leje en generator, da vi ikke have strøm nok på fabrikken til at kunne gennemføre testene.”

NOV’s kvalitetsansvarlige var med til alle test og kunne derefter sige ok til, at emnerne kunne sendes til Norge. ”Det giver stor tryghed for begge parter, at vi sammen har gennemført testene,” siger Søren. ”Dermed har vi også en fælles forståelse at bygge videre på.”

Klar til næste projekt
Hos RIVAL har man nu gennem flere år udviklet og udbygget samarbejdet med NOV. ”Vi har gennem årene bevist, at vi kan håndtere de ordrer, de kommer med,” siger salgschef Christian Aarup fra RIVAL. ”Det betyder også, at vi nu får lov til at byde ind på mere krævende opgaver. Vi ser frem til kommende udfordrende projekter både for dem og andre kunder i olie- og gasindustrien.”

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GE Oil & Gas, Norway

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More collaboration through documentation

Vetco Gray, which is part of the giant GE Oil & Gas increasingly demand RIVAL’s skills in machining operations.

The typical urgent job involves spare parts for tug boats or supply ships servicing the oil rigs. However, RIVAL also supplies spare parts to be stored by companies like Vetco Gray, who orders bushings for oil equipment used in the North Sea.

“In this case, we are always ahead with production so they can order parts for their warehouse in Esbjerg on an ongoing basis. Vetco Gray is part of the global GE Oil & Gas.

We have supplied GE with the requested documentation relating to our quality assurance, reliability of supply, environment, internal communication, health and safety work, procedures and ethics.

As a result, we can now be more flexible, expand the collaboration on an ongoing basis and supply more demanding components. We expect to be included in the shared database for all GE Oil & Gas units,” says Mr Sorensen.

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