Many thanks!

We had noticed that our tools and methods that we used on a daily basis were cumbersome and could be greatly improved if they could be brought together under one central tool. After reviewing what was available on the market, it was concluded that nothing would meet our requirements exactly.

SPARCS is therefore completely bespoke and has been developed in house to meet all of our requirements. It has been designed and developed from the ground up, improving on the previous systems that were being utilized within iGAS, bringing them all together under one roof, streamlining the day-to-day operations.

Although being internally developed, the system is designed on well established industry standard frameworks: PHP/HTML and Microsoft SQL Server. These frameworks offer a basis that has allowed us to future proof SPARCS.

Developing on these frameworks allows for future additional controls to be added with ease, meaning the lead time from identifying a potential improvement to implementation is as little as a week. Being internal there’s no long wait for additions to be included.

The decision was made to use a web interface, as this would make it available to us regardless of location (assuming we have an internet connection), whilst offering an interface that we’re all familiar with in today’s I.T. world. Additionally, SPARCS is currently undergoing small changes to make it even easier to manage our projects direct from our BlackBerry mobile phones.

As previously mentioned the system controls a number of facets of our day to day business, allowing us to monitor carefully what is happening on each project individually, giving a clear picture of where each project is.

The system processes our purchase orders, ensuring that approval is granted for all orders, significantly reducing incorrect orders, and matches our suppliers’ invoices to each order, allowing us to monitor any discrepancies, and take appropriate action.

Along with the aforementioned, SPARCS allows us to have a central database of clients, client sites, client contacts, suppliers and reps which we can access from any where we need to, any time we need to.

“We’re all very impressed with the new system; it’s significantly improved the management of our internal systems. Having the internal resources available to improve on SPARCS is also an added benefit, we no longer have to wait for specialist teams of people to come in, sit down and discuss what we want, and then wait for months until it gets implemented. A quick phone call or email is generally enough for a new improvement to be implemented,” explains Robert Lee.

Since its introduction two months ago, we have already seen huge improvements in the way we manage our projects and internal resources, and hope to develop the system further to include other areas of our business management; development is already under way for several new additions to the system.

For more information please contact Rob Lee on T: +44 (0) 1483 268269 / E: r.lee@igas-ts.com or Richard Browne at r.browne@igas-ts.com.

Over the past few years the company has experienced major changes, geared towards expanding its capabilities, and aiding its growth.

In 2008, the company made the decision to internationalise its business, looking to West Africa, specifically Ghana, as its starting point for overseas expansion.

This year, its potential for growth has taken a dramatic step forward, in combination with IGAS a specialist technology and engineering supplier to the gases industry, whereby both companies collaborated to successfully create the world’s first portable gas trans-fill system (PGTS).

The system is essentially a gas filling plant, packaged in moveable 20ft ISO containers. Dominion Gas can now take a complete plant to a remote site, rather than filling cylinders at the firm’s nearest gas plant and having to transport them over great distances to clients sites, this is both costly and ‘environmentally un-friendly’ because of the carbon emissions associated with transportation by road, rail or sea.

Dominion Gas Projects Director, Russel Davies, spoke at the launch of the new system, which was held in June, he said,

“We have been working on the  Portable Gas Transfill System (PGTS)  concept for quite some time and  after deciding we would target Ghana, the mobile concept was taken from the design drawings to the new technology we now have in place.

Due to the high potential of the  West African markets, it’s important to be able to be established and operational very quickly – traditional fixed installations  take more than a year to get from the decision point to being fully operational. You also need to be able to get out quickly if it doesn’t work – to decommission a permanent facility can be a very expensive ordeal, whereas with the new trans-fill system we can have the equipment installed and operational, or uplifted, in two days.”

The Equipment

The equipment comprises of 20ft containers, with two ISO tanks sitting on top, storing the N2 and O2 cryogenic liquids.  The liquid is cryogenically pumped, vaporised, and then put into cylinders – this is the same for oxygen, nitrogen, and argon (the pumping process for helium is slightly different).

Rob Lee, Projects and Business Director of iGAS, was instrumental in the designing of the new system, he said,

“One of the big challenges we had was how we were going to incorporate a standard ambient air vaporiser, which usually stands at 20-25ft high. We created a vaporiser which could be integrated into the inside of the main body of the frame, running around three sides of the container, taking the pumped (high pressure) cryogenic liquid to high pressure gas.

Other challenges we faced were issues such as the solid pipework (used to connect the supply containers to the fill container) being too stiff to allow easy movement and setup of the system; we overcame this by working with one of our partners to introduce a flexible pipework system. Helium was also another challenge; you still start with cryogenic – it comes in a trailer rather than an ISO tank – you vaporise it then compress it, as opposed to cryogenically pumping it, and then you put it into cylinders, so we had to introduce a hot water bath vaporiser, where it goes through lots of coils and comes out into a receiver on the other side.”

The technology is designed to cope with the harshest of environments, from the heat of Ghana, to the Arctic temperatures of Scandinavia.

A full system takes just 16 weeks to build, meaning Dominion Gas is now well positioned to be able to establish itself on an international scale as required in a relatively short space of time.

Davies added,

“It’s a significant investment for Dominion Gas and we expect to get significant returns on it moving into West Africa. It is our plan to hopefully start building one of these systems later in the year for another overseas location. We don’t want to be viewed as [just] a regionalised Aberdeen company, we want to be an International company and really branch out, and this is the first step.”

For more information please contact Robert Lee on +44 (0)1483 268269 or r.lee@igas-ts.com. Credit to gasworld http://www.gasworld.com

The project requires a mobile multiple-container based Cylinder Filling System design for use across various remote geographies, to support their oil, gas and diving Clients.

The filling system will fill empty cylinders with high pressure compressed gas from liquid cryogenic sources, via pumping (or compressor in the case of Helium) and ambient gas vaporisation. Currently such filling systems are not available as some of the technical challenges have been considered as insurmountable, and as such pre-filled cylinders are transported great distances (at great cost).

The project is very unique and will include:

• Design of the full system; process, mechanical, electrical & control. Complete with all required specifications.
• Supply of:
  • Nitrogen container system
  • Oxygen container system
  • Helium compressor container
  • Analysis & cylinder filling container
• Installation of all equipment required
• Modular commissioning & testing

IGAS were chosen by Dominion:

“due to their experience in delivering cylinder filling technology and turnkey projects throughout Europe and beyond; and cost effective and advanced technology and design.”

For more information please contact Robert Lee on +44 (0)1483 268269 or r.lee@igas-ts.com.

• Production & Engineering Manager Hydrogen Production Facility – Teesside
• Air Separation Unit and Oxygen Compression re-instrumentation £700K
• Industrial, Medical, Flammable and Toxic Cylinder Filling Installation and Disposal Systems – sites: Brinsworth, Worsley, Morden, Immingham, BOC UK & Ireland
• Plant Safety, Reliability & HAZOP Reviews
• Bulk & Tonnage Plant Remote Operation National Programme BOC UK & Ireland.
• PVC Suspension Plant Lead Instrument & Control Engineer £2.2M DCS (4000 I/O), £1M Instrumentation Content, Design Installation & Commissioning.

Graham is a Chartered Engineer with the Institution of Engineering and Technology and with his experience within the gases industry and instrumentation engineering knowledge, he complements and extends IGAS’s capabilities, ensuring we at IGAS continue to provide a service, which exceeds our customer’s expectations.

For more information please contact Robert Lee on +44 (0)1483 268269 or r.lee@igas-ts.com