Modernizing Slovnaft’s network inventory system

The challenge

Slovnaft, a.s., in Bratislava, Slovakia, is a petrochemical company whose refinery processes up to 6 million metric tonnes of crude oil each year and is among the most complex refineries in Europe. Among the key systems that keep the refinery operating is a vast telecommunications network. Essential to daily workflows in this fast-paced, safety-focused environment, the network is critical to maintaining the flow of communications to ensure safe operations and prompt response in the event of an emergency.

Slovnaft’s 6-square-kilometer refinery campus has more than 100 kilometers of fiber optic and metallic cables and a Wi-Fi network. The combined telecommunications network is a mix of new, old and very old technologies, with some cables 30 to 40 years old. Slovnaft needed to completely rebuild its network inventory system, which was more than 25 years old. Much of the data was stored in paper form – 60% had not yet been digitalized. This created many problems because specific connections were hard to locate and performing emergency or routine maintenance was difficult.

The solution

To modernize its network inventory capabilities, the company chose HxGN NetWorks, Hexagon’s geospatial asset management system. Hexagon experts began building a new, modern telecommunications GIS for the company by creating a data model, defining standards and conditions that should be used and determining how different assets including cables and ducts could be differentiated and visualized.

The new, modern system provides a full, complete map of the passive telecommunications network, providing location-based data and tools for the complete asset lifecycle, with full network tracing capabilities, fault analysis and path redundancy. The refinery’s infrastructure is critical to the manufacturing processes throughout the entire campus and having a full overview of its network means Slovnaft can locate and repair faults quickly. This reduces downtime and, more importantly, helps maintain safe operations and reliable communications.