Dutch based engineering firm KCI has been nominated with its new logistics tool TILT for the IRO Innovation prize.
This prestigious prize for offshore innovations will be handed out on 7 April during the IRO innovation seminar which will be held at the Shell Upstream Research & Development Centre in Rijswijk.
Together with three other companies, KCI will present its innovation during this seminar. The participants of the seminar will choose the overall winner.
Pascal Ferier, General Manager of KCI, sees a big future for TILT, which is an abbreviation for Transport and Installation Logistics Tool.
‘’Offshore wind is a relative new offshore sector. We truly believe that TILT will help project developers and EPIC contractors to better control the installation process and save significantly on project costs, which is really the biggest challenge in this market.’’ Ferier continues: “In an unprecedented simple way, early decisions in multi million euro projects can be supported by well founded arguments and data. Used in an early stage in the project, TILT can optimize the project by making the right choices while reducing project costs substantially.”
R&D manager Boudewijn van Gelder, who developed the tool in house, adds: “TILT simulates a wind farm installation project, whereby the dynamic interactions of vessels, harbour access, buffer sizes etc. are computed in small time steps”. The programme gives offshore wind developers and EPIC contractors in depth insight in the logistics process and its most stringent bottlenecks. Subsequently, it gives hard data on expected project duration and costs.
Van Gelder is looking forward to presenting TILT at the IRO Innovation seminar and hopes KCI will be awarded the Innovation Prize ‘’Last year we were nominated as well with the development of the MultiPurpose Platform (MPP); a self installing re-usable platform designed for the harsh North Sea environment. The year before we were nominated with the Heave Compensated Chute (HCC).
In the mean time, several MPP’s and HCC’s have already been built and our patented innovations have become a new standard in both Oil & Gas as Offshore wind industry. We sincerely hope that the market will embrace TILT as its new tool for offshore wind farm installation.”