Company Report: Capula Ltd
Leaders in systems integration for energy & utilities Capula Ltd produces fully bespoke automation and integrated software solutions for the energy and utilities sector – we find out more

Simon Coombs

When you think of the top names in independent systems integration, you think Capula. The firm is a leader in defining, delivering and supporting automation, IT and real-time business intelligence solutions.

Capula specialises in providing mission critical solutions to the nuclear, power, environmental waste treatment and renewables, utilities transmission and distribution and water assets, oil and gas and industrial markets.

The firm has been operating for 40 years, with around 200 engineers and IT specialists, and is renowned for innovation, delivery, quality and safety. Its pragmatic solutions, based on practical, operational experience support its clients’ capital programmes, improve performance and enable regulatory compliance. The company provides consulting, surveys, design and delivery, 24x7 support and hosted data services to its clients.

Capula specialises in mission critical solutions, meaning if the firm’s solutions don’t work the client’s day to day business stops running. Clearly, this underlines the importance of the services that Capula offers.

“For example, if an invoicing system doesn’t work for a few days, it’s not the end of the world, but if it’s a control system behind a power station or a sewage pumping system, then you quickly get issues,” says Capula’s Business Development Director Simon Coombs. Mission critical examples include a whole series of automation control projects in nuclear waste processing and preparing for new fuels. In power, their historic focus has been on the major coal fired power stations where Capula has installed generation and control systems to run the whole plant. Increasingly, Capula has a role in low carbon initiatives, for example, building control systems for biomass renewable energy and to improve energy management across their utility infrastructure clients.

But how has the firm been doing in the recent months of worldwide economic despair? In the last year, energy and utilities clients’ revenues have been down as their customers seek to defer spend and use less energy. Coombs says: “What it seems is that many major infrastructure projects have been deferred within the UK. Undoubtedly in the last year this has impacted the whole sector: on the client’s side, for our peers, and ourselves, have seen a dip in new orders.”

How has the company responded to this? “We focus on the quality of what we do and our relationships, and therefore we’re in a good position in the sense that we have a lot of long term, strong relationships,” adds Coombs. Indeed, some of the clients of the firm have been on the books for the more than 15 years. “Focusing on these things is positioning us well as the larger projects now start-up and the market begins to recover.”

Capula has offices throughout the UK, providing centres of excellence and support for long-term client relationships and dedication to high standards of delivery. These include: Stone, Staffordshire (main office and centre for support services); Thames Valley; Westlakes, Cumbria (centre for nuclear); Aberdeen (centre for oil and gas); and Gloucester (centre for real-time business intelligence solutions); as well as site offices at several large power stations for on-site support and projects.

Some of the most recent projects at the firm are very notable indeed. In February International Power (IPR) installed Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) at its power station in Rugeley, Staffordshire, for which Capula had been appointed as the control systems integrator. Capula was responsible for such things as PLC and SCADA based control systems and field instrumentation supply and installation.

As well as the complete implementation of the FGD control system, this project included modifications to the existing power plant control systems. Key to success was ensuring that the integration was done efficiently, minimising downtime and applying the established standards and techniques used on the power station to the design of the new systems for easier future operations and maintenance.

Capula’s clients have the common characteristics in that they are asset intensive, infrastructure companies. As such they are all seeking to do “more with less” and ensure that they comply with environmental and other regulatory requirements.

Therefore, these infrastructure companies are starting to understand that they need to tie in the information from operational systems with their business systems and decision support systems, requiring operational information to be provided in real time to decision makers across the enterprises. This initiative brings new challenges for system integrators.

“Engineering meets IT,” says Coombs. Capula has built up over the years a niche expertise in being able to operate both in automation and real time IT.

And this initiative will no doubt help drive the company to great success in the future.

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