Digitalisation at the heart of safety and reliability activities in the hydrogen sector

Many industrial projects that are part of the deployment of the hydrogen sector have now been launched. Beyond the technical and economic feasibility of these projects, safety and reliability issues remain at the heart of the concerns of the stakeholders, whether they are equipment manufacturers, technology suppliers, designers of mobility systems, local authorities, or industrial producers, transporters and distributors of hydrogen.

In order to best address these issues across the entire sector, digital has a key role to play in offering innovative transformation and optimisation solutions. Making decisions quickly, comparing scenarios by simulation, accessing reliable data quickly, simplifying communication and information transfer channels… these are all needs that arise for the management of companies involved in a rapidly accelerating hydrogen industry.

Like many companies, Airbus Protect has placed digital transformation at the heart of its concerns with two main objectives: on the one hand to transform the company’s internal activities and processes. On the other hand, to put the customer experience at the centre of the business model.

With the help of the Digital Transformation Department (Data and AI), and drawing on both customer needs and the expertise of the business teams, digital solutions are being deployed, addressing on the one hand the hydrogen sector, but also transversally all of Airbus Protect’s businesses: safety, security, sustainability.

IRYS

On the topic of the industrial safety, Airbus Protect developed the platform IRYS which is an Information System of Management of the Risks intended for the industrialists, in particular to the security managers, who must manage the industrial safety of their installations. It allows the centralisation and the reliability of the data of one or several industrial sites, as well as the structuring of the activities of control of risks in conformity with the regulation. The proposed collaborative approach saves time, effort and cost while optimising the speed and quality of decision-making. This platform is currently being used in studies for hydrogen production and storage sites. Its added value resides in particular in the functionalities allowing the capitalisation of complex data and their exploitation through modules integrating dedicated business rules, such as hazard studies and ICPE files.

SimfiaNeo

Amongst other digital solutions, Airbus Protect also has a SimfiaNeo platform for its internal needs but also for its customers, dedicated to the modelling of systems (model based approach) and the optimisation of the availability, reliability and associated maintenance of an installation or a set of units that may represent several links in the hydrogen value chain. This multi-systems approach dedicated to cost control makes sense when projects involve an ecosystem of connected facilities on a territorial scale to deliver a hydrogen supply service.

Fence

In the field of predictive maintenance, Airbus Protect’s use of artificial intelligence and the ability to connect sensors to reproduce the digital twin of the installation offers the capacity to anticipate and control the performance of hydrogen systems, which will be under increasing pressure. Finally, to address cybersecurity issues, which is the third pillar of Airbus Protect’s expertise, the Fence digital solution enables efficient digital processing of increasingly complex cyber risk analyses.
Thus, while the hydrogen industry will implement modern and connected systems and installations, Airbus Protect has the ad-hoc digital means to support the industry on security and risk management issues.

Airbus Protect

Present in Toulouse (head office), but also in Elancourt and Issy les Moulineaux for the Paris region, in Marseille but also in Bordeaux, Nancy and Brest as well as in Germany, England and Spain, Airbus Protect is experiencing significant growth with more than 800 employees and a turnover of around 80 million euros in 2021.

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