There's a number that should embarrass the oil and gas industry more than it does.
60 to 80 percent of your engineering team's time is spent on data entry.
Not analysis. Not design validation. Not scenario modeling. Not anything that requires the engineering degree you're paying them for. Data entry.
They're extracting pipe segments from GIS exports. Transcribing SCADA pressures into simulator input files. Normalizing elevations, diameters, materials, and connectivity across systems that don't talk to each other. Then — after 200 hours of prep work — they finally get to run the simulation, look at the output, and actually use their expertise.
You hired an engineer. You're using them as a data clerk. The profession deserves better. Your cash flow deserves better.
Why Hydraulic Models Take 200 Hours to Build
A typical pipeline hydraulic model — built in DNV Synergi or AspenTech HYSYS or SLB PIPESIM — requires:
- Network topology: every pipe segment, diameter, length, material, elevation, connectivity. Usually pulled from GIS by hand.
- Operating data: current pressures, flows, temperatures, product compositions. Usually pulled from SCADA historians by hand.
- Equipment specifications: compressor curves, valve characteristics, heat exchanger coefficients. Usually pulled from engineering drawings by hand.
- Calibration: tuning the model's hydraulic parameters to match observed operating conditions. Usually done iteratively, by hand.
The data exists. It's in your GIS. It's in your SCADA. It's in your drawings. The problem is that nothing connects those systems to your simulator. So an engineer does it manually, every time, for every model, every year.
The consequence: most operators only run 2–3 what-if scenarios per quarter. The models are stale within months. When leadership asks "what happens if we shut in the north pad?" the answer is "let me build a model" — and three weeks go by.
What FlowSync Does Differently
FlowSync is the piece of software that should have existed 20 years ago. It takes the data that's already in your GIS, SCADA, and engineering drawings — and auto-builds the hydraulic or process model, calibrated and ready to run, in minutes.
Here's the workflow:
Step 1 — Auto-Extract Network Topology
FlowSync connects to your GIS (Esri ArcGIS, Autodesk, or a GIS database) and extracts the network topology automatically. Pipe segments, diameters, lengths, materials, elevations, connectivity. The things an engineer used to pull by hand — pulled in seconds.
Step 2 — Auto-Ingest Operational Data
FlowSync connects to your SCADA historian (AVEVA PI, Cygnet, eLynX, Ignition, IronIQ) and pulls live pressures, flows, temperatures, and demand profiles. The operating envelope is captured automatically — no copy-paste.
Step 3 — Auto-Extract Drawings
FlowSync has five AI agents that ingest engineering drawings (P&IDs, PFDs, isometrics): classification, symbol recognition, topology extraction, data reconciliation, and spec extraction. Legacy drawings that used to require manual data entry become structured data.
Step 4 — ML Calibration
FlowSync's ML-driven calibration engine tunes the model's hydraulic parameters to match the observed operating conditions from SCADA. What used to be an iterative hand-tuned calibration becomes an automated step.
Step 5 — Simulator-Ready Outputs
FlowSync exports to 15+ simulation platforms in native formats: Synergi Gas, Synergi Pipeline Simulator, HYSYS, EPANET, WaterGEMS, OLGA, PIPESIM, AFT Fathom, and others. Your engineering team keeps using the simulators they know — they just stop building models from scratch.
What Changes When Models Are Automated
When a model can be built in 20 minutes instead of 200 hours, three things change:
- Scenario count: operators run 100+ what-if scenarios per cycle, not 2–3. Every what-if becomes cheap to answer.
- Currency: models stay calibrated to current operating conditions continuously. The model never goes stale because refresh is a scheduled task, not a consulting engagement.
- Who uses them: engineers spend their time on interpretation and design, not on data entry. Engineering throughput increases 5–10x without headcount.
3.5 million meters of pipeline modeled. 200 hours → 20 minutes per model. Zero manual data entry.
Where FlowSync Fits
FlowSync doesn't replace DNV Synergi or HYSYS or PIPESIM. Those are best-in-class simulators and your team knows them. FlowSync does everything before the simulator — the data prep, the topology extraction, the calibration. It hands the simulator a clean, ready-to-run model.
Keep your simulators. Keep your engineering talent. Stop paying them to do data entry.
Want to see FlowSync auto-build a model from your pipeline data? Send us one section — we'll build the calibrated Synergi (or HYSYS, or PIPESIM) model and return it in 24 hours. That's the pilot offer. Apply for the Free Pilot — qualified operators get a 4-week proof of value at no license cost.
