Today we are talking to Damien Rollot  who manages operational support  within Olivier Revel’s team.  

Damien: tell us about your work-experience…

I went to a mechanical engineering school followed by a year at ESSA where I obtained my IWE (2001).  

I began my career with Serimax when it was in fact still Serimer DASA: Serimax became Serimax in 2006 when Serimer Dasa merged with a Scottish company: UMAX, as a Research and development (R&D) engineer. I managed regular operational support which was adjusted according to the company’s operations plan and the new technologies that were necessary to support the field. I am currently still a recognized senior R&D engineer meaning that I have been with Serimax for over 20 years. These years have allowed me to understand every aspect of projects, support and welding in a very broad way. I could say I now know the whole spectrum of problems encountered in pipe welding, but I am sure that there is always more to learn and especially with the arrival of new energy markets with the energy transition.  

What does an exceptional operational support offer?

• Develop reliable equipment  
• Develop robust welding procedures  
• Anticipate the training necessary for the proper implementation of the solutions adopted  
• Know how to make yourself available in the back office to solve problems remotely  
• Be able to send the right experts to assist the production teams on site 

This also includes anticipating all necessary formalities for travel to onshore/offshore sites. 

Do you have an example to share with us? 

A few months ago, a fairly recurrent problem of root pass drilling on a sensitive project was reported to our operational support team. But because we had a full monitoring offered by our Saturnax systems we were able to retrieve and analyze all the welding data remotely. It was also possible to re–produce the problem in the workshop with a small team of engineers who were immediately put on the job to manage this issue. From there, and after very specific adjustments to our wire-feeding chain, endurance tests were put in place before proposing a software update to the operational team to permanently eliminate the drilling problem. In the end, this remote intervention was managed over 3 to 4 days and helped the company progress on a problem that had never been raised until then. 

What is our added value as Serimax? (on the operational part)?

With already more than 1000 projects monitored representing several million welds, Serimax has a perfect understanding of the needs related to pipeline laying operations in different environments (onshore, offshore, spoolbase, pre–fabrication). All this experience translates into the development of equipment, procedures and project management processes, in perfect harmony with the challenges faced by our customers. Everything is put into action on site due to experienced operational teams. Combined with this, our global presence allows us to mobilize quickly all the resources necessary to ensure smooth project operations.  

Do our training centres provide us with much help when looking at operational support?

Our training centres give us the upper hand because we train the teams from a young age, we can then go on to offer fully qualified personnel for all projects. Having this in-house means that our apprentices have seen many project examples before being put on a real project for full-time work. In terms of solutions and delivery this gives them the possibility to be open-minded and know our equipment and secrets like the back of their hand.