Finding the right approach: How Hafslund Celsio manages complex energy projects

Øystein Hanshus Hjelm, Project Manager at Hafslund Celsio

Taking control and moving away from email engineering

Hafslund Celsio previously relied on an internal document archive with strict access controls. This made collaboration with external stakeholders challenging. “We moved away from email engineering. Rather than distributing project data by email and having to search through old conversations, we wanted to manage everything in one place – from communication and action points to change notices and contracts,” Øystein explains.

Øystein and his team took a hands-on approach to Interaxo from day one. In collaboration with Interaxo’s consultants, they tailored their own set-up with a consistent folder structure and document numbering across all energy centre projects. Since then, the team has been able to further adapt the structure on their own, as their needs evolve. Now, new projects can get up and running quickly because everyone already knows how the system works.

“I believe in the power of familiarity. It’s about not making things more complicated than they need to be,” says Øystein. On larger projects, contractors are contractually required to use Interaxo. And Hafslund Celsio provides training whenever new users join a project.

“If we can’t manage a solution without relying on provider support, it’s not going to work for us. We need a system we can take ownership of and adapt to our needs. That autonomy has always been very important to us.”
– Øystein Hanshus Hjelm, Project Manager at Hafslund Celsio

Photo: Hafslund

A single source of truth for everyone involved

For Øystein, the way they manage documents in Interaxo has been one of the biggest improvements. Previously, documentation was often sent by email, stored locally and forwarded in different versions. This made it very difficult to ensure that everyone was working from the latest revision.

Now, everything is managed in the shared project platform, where everyone can access the same up-to-date information and revision history. “What’s stored in Interaxo is what counts. If you’ve received a document anywhere else, that’s not the version we work from,” Øystein emphasises. This way of working has saved valuable time, reduced risk and improved the overall quality of project delivery.

“In my experience, starting new projects with Interaxo as our single source of truth has resolved a lot of issues.”
– Øystein Hanshus Hjelm, Project Manager at Hafslund Celsio

Øystein and his team are now able to identify potential errors even earlier. “Without a well-structured common data environment, it’s basically inevitable that different stakeholders will end up working from different information at some point,” he says.

Pointing to older facilities as particularly challenging, he adds: “Some of the facilities we work with, as well as their equipment, are several decades old. The documentation and processes surrounding those have rarely been digitised. But with the tools we have today, we can collect all of that data and turn it into a valuable resource for future projects.”

And that’s exactly where Øystein sees the next opportunity: taking control of existing project data from older projects by digitising and repurposing it. “We have so much valuable information at our disposal. Future projects will run even more smoothly when we make that information easier to access, understand and reuse,” he concludes.