Solution Case Study

Energy Company Restarts Nuclear Reactors Faster with Data-Linked Diagram Solution

OverviewCompany: Électricité de FranceCompany Website: www.edf.comCompany Size: 159,740 employeesCountry or Region: FranceIndustry: Power and utilitiesPartner: ShareVisual

Company ProfileBased in Paris, Électricité de France (EDF), a major player in the European energy market, is an integrated energy company that is active in all areas of the business: generation, transmission, distribution, energy supply, and trading. EDF had 2012 revenue of €72.7 billion (US$98 billion).

Software and Services Microsoft Office− Microsoft Visio Professional 2013

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013

Technologies− Visio Services in Microsoft

SharePoint Server 2013

“We can now visualize conflicts ... before they happen, and we can take steps to resolve them right away.”François Dionis, Senior Research Engineer, Research and Development, Électricité de France

Every year Électricité de France (EDF) nuclear power plants are required to shut down for maintenance. Minimizing downtime is key to maintaining revenue and needed power. To speed the restart process, the company’s R&D department worked with Microsoft partner ShareVisual to deploy a dynamic diagram solution based on Microsoft Visio Professional 2013. Engineers can now diagrammatically visualize startup process information across multiple databases, saving time on the plant’s restart.

Visio CustomerSolution Case Study

SituationHeadquartered in Paris, Électricité de France (EDF) operates the largest fleet of nuclear reactors in Europe, including 58 reactors across 19 sites in France alone.

Every year, each nuclear power plant must shut down to refuel and perform maintenance on its reactors, which takes less than one month on average. Restarting the power plant is complex, so following efficient restart procedures is essential to minimize downtime. “Given the enormous power generated by our plants, shutting the plant down is not only costly for EDF, it also deprives the whole grid of a major source of electricity,” says François Dionis, Senior Research Engineer at EDF Research and Development (EDF-R&D).

Restarting the power plants requires using detailed flow diagrams and process and instrumentation diagrams created on computer-aided design (CAD) systems and other software. The company maintains a database of thousands of these static reference diagrams that detail everything from how machines should be serviced to which circuit breakers should be open or closed. Engineers follow the diagrams to make decisions about how to move from one scheduled restart activity to another.

For example, one restart procedure might require closing a set of valves to protect workers from dangerous conditions. (Protective measures like these are called tagouts.) Another procedure might require physically inspecting valves to make sure that they’re properly positioned so that the restart can proceed. (Restart measures like these are called lineups.) A conflict occurs if a tagout measure prevents a worker from performing a particular lineup activity. The tagouts, lineups, and comprehensive information about them are stored in a

database. Other databases store, analyze, and report on continuously incoming information supplied by monitoring systems throughout the plant. EDF-R&D determined that engineers would work more effectively if the real-time status of the conflicts could be shown on flow diagrams.

This is only one example. In general, EDF-R&D wants its engineers to be able to visualize not only diagrams, but also the real-time dynamic status of the procedures that those diagrams correspond to—all in real time and all drawing from multiple data sources.

SolutionTo achieve its goals, EDF-R&D worked with its IT partner ShareVisual to develop a dynamic data-linked diagram solution. Headquartered in La Seauve sur Semene, France, ShareVisual is a Microsoft Partner Network member with expertise in database optimization, in addition to software development, support, and customization services.

ShareVisual participated in the early adopter program for Microsoft Visio Professional 2013 and Microsoft Visio Pro for Office 365 and recognized the value that the dynamic data visualization functionality in Visio would offer EDF-R&D. “We like Visio for its comprehensive diagraming capability and easily customizable graphics elements,” says Michel Laplane, Development Manager of ShareVisual. “Working with EDF-R&D, we designed flow diagrams with visual elements that change shape, size, position, and color in direct response to the plant’s operations.”

Dionis adds, “That means we can directly visualize a database of ever-changing plant

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“Visio is an ideal canvas for blending a diagram and data together. There are other diagraming applications, but they don’t actually carry a payload of data with them.”

Michel Laplane, Development Manager, ShareVisual

conditions and modify the contents of that database directly on the diagrams. This capability is very useful for complicated restart activities.”

The other key aspect of the solution is the interoperability between Visio and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013. The EDF-R&D dynamic diagrams in Visio are now published to SharePoint sites where stakeholders throughout the company can see the visualizations through a web browser. Visio Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 makes this possible: it runs as a service application in SharePoint Server and allows data-connected Visio diagrams to be refreshed and updated from multiple EDF-R&D data sources.

BenefitsBy using the Visio dynamic diagram solution, EDF-R&D gains several benefits, including: At-a-Glance Information, Quicker Restart Decisions Before, engineers made decisions based on two types of databases—for example, the combination of:

Visual (but static) flow diagrams from one database.

Other nonvisual databases that reported on the plant’s operational status.

Now, engineers see, at a glance, dynamic status visualizations that are derived from all the affected databases. Engineers can then adjust restart processes as necessary, sometimes in minutes rather than hours. “We get the data faster, and it’s presented in a way that helps us make decisions faster, too,” says Dionis.

Laplane adds, “Visio is an ideal canvas for blending a diagram and data together. There are other diagraming applications, but they don’t actually carry a payload of data with them.”

Safer, Faster Restart ProcessesEDF-R&D uses Visio to present an analysis of tagouts and lineups. The visual elements in Visio are animated by the changing contents of the tagout-and-lineup database. “We can now visualize conflicts between tagouts and lineups before they happen, and we can take steps to resolve them right away,” says Dionis. “Restart procedures that depend on the tagouts and lineups can go forward without interruption.”

The tagout/lineup implementation of Visio also visualizes the postponement effect of lineups after the tagouts processes. It is now possible to anticipate alignment activities, just after the conflicts of equipment positions have disappeared.

Simple Deployment, Seamless InteroperabilityLaplane praises the solution for its easy customization of individual graphical elements, which keeps design resource requirements low. He also notes that it requires minimal additional software on most computers because Visio interoperates with Microsoft Office, and SharePoint works through a web browser. In particular, no CAD software has to be installed.

Dionis says, “The Visio user interface is very straightforward to use, which is especially helpful for people who aren’t accustomed to working with CAD systems. And it’s not very easy for anyone to use AutoCAD on a train, for example, but you can do that with Visio.”

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A dynamic flow diagram of the power plant

As EDF-R&D applies the Visio solution to other restart activities, the company expects ongoing improvements to further reduce downtime. The company calculates that the faster restarts will translate directly into increased revenue.

Now, the company is evaluating different strategies to implement this R&D demonstrator.

VisioThe new Visio makes it easier than ever to create and share professional, versatile diagrams that simplify complex information. It includes updated shapes, templates, and styles, as well as enhanced support for teams, including the ability for several people to work on a single diagram at the same time.

For more information go to:Visio.microsoft.com

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about ShareVisual services, visit the website at: www.sharevisual.com

For more information about Électricité de France services, visit the website at: www.edf.com

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published April 2014