Visualize the critical points of a pipeline route at a glance

Supporting pipeline owners and operators in an innovative way with asset management and integrity issues, that is where HDM Pipelines' strength lies. The originally Frisian company is about to introduce a unique software application that visualizes the critical points of an entire pipeline route at a glance. An interview with Jeroen Kruims, CEO at HDM Pipelines, about this unique development.

As an underground infrastructure consulting firm, HDM Pipelines focuses primarily on pipeline routes in all facets and stages of life. "We advise from construction to pipeline removal, and everything in between," says Kruims. "There is a lot of existing pipeline infrastructure that people don't know the condition, state or location of, or only partially know. Data is often incomplete. In the 1970s and 1980s, an awful lot of pipelines were laid in the Netherlands, which means that we are now mostly at a point where something may need to be done with them. We support pipeline owners and managers in that regard, both at the management table and in the trench, and can switch quickly at all levels."

Risk profile

Modern asset management is also a must for pipeline owners and managers to engage in risk analysis, Kruims rightly notes. "Asset management is usually about an asset, an object at a particular location. With a pipeline, it's different. A pipeline runs from A to B and can have a different risk profile along the way. The risk profile under a railroad line is different than in a meadow, even though there is usually only 100 meters between them. Three years ago we found out that there is no software to assess this. Reason for us to take that up ourselves. We started our own development and wrote our own algorithms that allow us to do a risk analysis on every meter of a pipeline. It results in a map with dots that represent a pipeline and turn red or green depending on the risk profile. This allows the pipeline manager to see at a glance where the critical points are."

Public data

The same software is also suitable for determining the position of a new pipeline route. Kruims: "Suppose a customer wants to go from A to B with a certain medium. Via a route analysis, our software fully automatically determines the best route. We then test this in the field and add our findings. The software takes into account all possible variables and data from public sources, such as archaeological hotspots, groundwater catchment areas, road crossings, railroad lines, et cetera. A lot of information is documented in the Netherlands, data that is publicly available. We make grateful use of this with our software to determine the most ideal route or to perform a risk analysis."

The HDM Pipelines software is currently still running in beta version, being tested in practice and further refined. We expect to introduce the tool next fall. The goal is to eventually offer pipeline owners and operators an online portal for the management and maintenance of their pipeline routes."