- home
- » press room
- » articles
- » article 1
- » articles
- » press room
It’s “Smart” Time
By Joe Morray
Happy New Year! The start of a new calendar is always a good time to look at what we need to change and what we should aspire to achieve in the next twelve months and beyond. As has been chronicled in Insight for the past few years, we continue to make huge strides in developing and implementing technology for plant design, maintenance and operations. Much of this is enabled by a data-centric and information management approaches. So how will we work “smarter” in the year 2004? Some of these methods are already being practiced, and others remain challenges for years to come.
Goal 1: Simulate and optimize: Imagine making a minor change to a design and immediately knowing the impact to plant cost, schedule, operability, safety, environmental quality, etc. We have always managed process performance and safety (design safety factors), but costs and maintainability have largely been relegated to separate evaluations or simply measured as outcomes after start-up. In coming years, we will create models that allow analytical optimization of the entire plant from virtually any vantage point. What’s required to make this real is the ability to develop rules from actual measured results and then apply the rules to plant data models.
Goal 2: Rules-based design: Plant data models will not only encompass the where and what of components, but also the rules that led to the component’s definition. Engineering and technology suppliers will differentiate themselves based on their ability to define rules, which can be applied to a variety of technologies, sitings, and performance conditions. SmartPlant 3D defines structural details, for example, based on the connecting structural members. These are rules that we have applied as engineers and are now codified for broader use. This is just the beginning of a revolution in rules-based design.
Goal 3: Information re-use: As you have read previously in this column, we are challenged to modify our work processes and systems so we can re-use information effectively from previous designs. As practicing engineers, we long ago recognized that certain elements of a plant deserve attention and optimization (see Goal 1), but others should simply be pulled from the library. In a world where time-to-market is vital, the ability to massively re-use information is one of the few cogent strategies.
Goal 4: Create a report/drawing and then throw it away: This goal is not as much about creating drawings, but the need to drive the design and construction processes through the information models. With the model as the center of the project, we are free to create reports that fit the particular need of the person using it. This may be a drawing, a 3D plot, a video, or a spreadsheet. The document will serve a temporary need and them be thrown away because it will be stale shortly thereafter. These documents will become the means instead of the end.
Goal 5: The end to “as-building”: It has become a standard step in a project to go back and update the drawings and documentation for work that was changed during construction. The fact that we cannot create changes in the model before they are realized in the field is a throwback to the process of designing in the office and constructing in the field; response time just isn’t fast enough. Companies are overcoming delays by taking advantage of high-speed Internet access available at many job sites and by placing the server/model at the site. This way, the design-basis model is changed and verified before instantiation in the plant. There’s a huge impact on rework when changes are made in advance.
All of these goals are about working smarter, making use of the technologies now available, and defining performance standards that far exceed what we currently accept. That’s welcome change in any new year.
Joe Morray is president of Trinity Technologies Corp., a process industries consulting firm that helps owner/operators and EPC firms succeed in the use of information systems. The company specializes in driving companies to align work processes, technology, and organizational change requirements for the plant environment.
EMC/Documentum
