Introduction
Opvantek is pleased to be hosting the 2017 Optimain User Group Meeting! This year's meeting will be a celebration of 25 years of Optimain in Opvantek's home city, Philadelphia.
We are also excited to announce this year’s Keynote Speaker, Mr. Jeff Wiese, VP for Pipeline Integrity Services at TRC Solutions. Mr. Wiese is the former Associate Administrator for Pipeline Safety at PHMSA. We look forward to hearing Mr. Wiese’s unique perspective and insights on the evolving integrity management and pipeline safety regulations.
We hope at least one representative from each company attends to share knowledge, best practices and learn how other companies are using the Optimain product suite. Your feedback is very important, as it gives us insight into future software enhancements.
THANK YOU to everyone who contributed to last year's conference in Las Vegas. We look forward to seeing you in Philadelphia!
Book your Hotel Room
For room reservations at the group rate of $205++, call the Sofitel at 215-569-8300 before Friday, April 28, 2017. The reservation desk hours of operation are:
- Monday - Friday 8 am - 7 pm EST
- Saturday 10 am - 6:30 pm EST
Be sure to reference the Reservation ID #052317OPVA.
++Rates are for a single or double occupancy. The extra person charge is $20 per room, per night. Rates are subject to all city and state taxes. Currently, these taxes total 15.5% with 7% designated to state tax and 8.5 designated to city tax. Taxes are subject to change without notice.
Tickets, Early Bird Benefits & Discounts
Three customers from companies, with an annual DS maintenance agreement that includes the UGM ticket benefit, are entitled to a free early bird ticket. Attendees that use the code for a regular admission ticket will have to pay the ticket difference. Additional attendees or attendees from a company, that does not qualify for the free early bird tickets, can register but will not receive any discount. Contact Lauren Perez to find out if your company qualifies for free attendees and/or for the discount code to be used during checkout.
Schedule (click here)
Session Descriptions
- Generating DIMP Performance Metrics from DS: This session would include customer presentations and/or summaries by Opvantek showing how Optimain DS can be used to generate and track various DIMP Performance Metrics, including metrics suggested by the NGA/SGA DIMP Template.
- Monitoring & Trending Risk Scores: Being able to measure changes in risk over time is critically important to understanding the health of our distribution systems, as well as the success of our DIM programs. One of the issues is being able to account for Optimain DS model changes (e.g. new factors) over time. Opvantek has created new views that account for model changes and allow users to see the true risk picture over time due to increases/decreases of failures due to threats, consequences, and changes in the footage of various piping asset types. Opvantek has also developed several new ways to use project history audit records and system snapshot data to monitor changes in various risk metrics over time. Opvantek will show examples of these reports and trend charts using real data from several different customer systems. Specific examples include:
- projects with a large percentage of change in risk or predicted leaks in the last month, quarter, or year
- trend of total risk by material or geographic area
- Optimain IM update & Design Feedback: As you know, Opvantek has initiated development of a replacement product for Optimain DS named Optimain IM. Opvantek will share the progress made over the past year, give a current demonstration of the new system, and also solicit input from the user group on key design options.
- Pipeline Safety Management: Following up on last year’s keynote and sponsor presentations, Opvantek will solicit customer presentations on Pipeline Safety Management as it relates to DIMP and the use of Optimain DS for risk assessment and resource allocation.
- Probabilistic Consequence Modeling: The industry is continuing to evaluate how to improve risk assessment. Specifically, the industry is trying to tackle the issue of how low likelihood failures result in high consequence events. PHMSA is conducting ongoing workshops on this issue, primarily focusing on transmission risk. Opvantek is also involved in a project with GTI focusing on probabilistic consequence modeling. As part of Opvantek's development of Optimain IM, Opvantek has committed to use the existing “Risk Profile Factors” (consequence factors) and evolve them into a new Probabilistic Consequence Model using Event Tree modeling. This session will address some of the design concepts as well as solicit input from our users.
- Product Development Update: This session will highlight new product features developed by Opvantek in the past year or customers who have applied current product features in a novel way to solve specific business problems.
- Report from Maryland's STRIDE Working Group: Several current Optimain DS customers are members of a Working Group formed to advise the Maryland Public Service Commission on matters related to the STRIDE (Strategic Infrastructure Development and Enhancement) regulatory recovery program. Those customers will share their experiences and summarize key lessons learned from this activity as it relates to their use of Optimain DS as a key decision support tool in their overall pipe replacement programs.
- User Council: Opvantek staff will leave the room for this user moderated and attended discussion about Opvantek and the Optimain DS product. Users will focus strengths, weaknesses & future development priorities. Opvantek staff members will be debriefed when they return.