15. August 2019
Digital twins, artificial intelligence, machine learning and simulations are the most important areas covered by the professorship. A contract for the externally funded professorship was signed with Dr. Andrei Lobov at the start of June.
“This professorship offers an exciting combination of industry-inspired engineering challenges and the freedom to search for systematic ways to solve complex engineering problems. This will require knowledge integration from various disciplines”, says Andrei Lobov.
The professorship will be hosted by the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Lobov’s tasks will include developing an academic community, contributing to research on relevant topics relating to digitalisation and supporting ongoing projects at the three partners. He will also cooperate with research and educational institutions in Norway and overseas.
“My research will concentrate on the ability to act quickly and digitally, and I will explore the links between a general overview of a system and its fundamental components. This may help us to understand how design decisions can affect the whole system or product through the various lifecycle stages and vice versa”, explains Lobov.
The professorship at NTNU will officially begin in September 2019.
Exciting research
Three leading companies from different industries – Aker Solutions, Multiconsult and Digitread – are supporting the research, with the joint goal of obtaining a better understanding of the automation and optimisation of design processes for construction and operation. In addition, the professorship provides a good platform for working with academia and facilitates learning across industries, through the close cooperation between the three partners.
“Norwegian industry must undergo a transition where digital measures are used to achieve further efficiency and productivity. This is an important factor to accomplish a competitive and sustainable industry. Digitread is helping the industry to digitalise their research and development processes. Collaboration in connection with this professorship will help to promote common knowledge and to further develop examples in industrial digitalisation. We believe this will be an important arena for the industry and look forward to contributing,” says Magnus Normann, Managing Director of Digitread.
“It will be exciting to follow this research which explores the challenges and opportunities that we encounter in relation to digitalisation. For Multiconsult it will help us to stay at the forefront of our industry, and we are very happy to be contributing alongside such strong partners”, says Øyvind Holtedahl, Executive Vice President of Market, Strategy and Innovation at Multiconsult, one of the leading firms of consulting engineers and designers in Norway.
“Digitalisation has already produced major advances in the oil and gas industry, but there is potential for it to do much more. Close collaboration between academia and commercial players like ix3 and Aker Solutions can allow new knowledge to be implemented, “says Are Føllesdal Tjønn, who heads ix3, Aker Solutions’ new subsidiary offering software solutions and digital services to the oil industry.