Worley, an EPC energy, chemicals and resources sector leader, and software company, Arundo, have launched The Data Refinery, a hub for applied data science and machine learning solutions.

“The Data Refinery combines Worley’s industry experience with the software and data science expertise of Arundo,” the companies said. Its focus is to bridge the gaps among operations, data science and information technology to help industrial companies transform their businesses through data-driven decisions. “This ultimately helps companies increase revenue, reduce costs, and improve uptime, as well as reduce safety and environmental risks,” they said.

For the past several months, joint teams from Worley and Arundo have used The Data Refinery, located in downtown Houston, Texas, as a space to incubate and develop analytics applications that meet the needs of Worley and its customers.

“There’s never been a more exciting time for the energy and resources market as it moves towards a greater reliance on artificial intelligence and machine learning,” said Bradley Andrews, President, Digital at Worley. “Arundo is at the forefront of data science and machine learning technology, delivering value to companies in 90 days or less. By harnessing our industry and asset experience with their proven technology, The Data Refinery helps companies identify the right problems to solve and gives them the confidence to embed artificial intelligence and machine learning into their operations.”

The first product launched via The Data Refinery is DataSeer, a product that automates the extraction of information from piping and instrumentation diagrams, isometric drawings, and other engineering diagrams.

“Using deep learning and computer vision techniques, DataSeer can recognise all instances of specific instruments, valves, lines, and other features in a diagram in just seconds,” the companies said. This has immediate applications in bid production and project estimation.

In addition, DataSeer can improve digital representations of physical systems, and help industrial companies create relevant, usable digital twins for a variety of advanced analytics and operational applications.

Stuart Morstead, Arundo President & COO, said: “With DataSeer, users are already seeing a reduction in manual processing time of up to 90%. At the same time, accuracy is increasing, enabling significant improvement across a variety of project engineering use cases.

“Worley and Arundo believe this capability can significantly improve core EPC processes, major projects at industrial companies, and the management of engineering diagrams at any company with both legacy and new specifications.”

Concurrent with the launch of the DataSeer application, Worley is also launching DataSeer Managed Service for customers seeking the turnkey digitisation of legacy industrial drawings.