DATA DRIVES tomorrow's plant

The process industries are changing. Competition is intensifying; project schedules are shortening; globalisation is demanding new ways of working, with the Internet often acting as the catalyst. Companies are looking to cut plant life cycle costs by as much as 30 per cent - without increasing risk. The industries are under pressure and need answers.

Poor management of plant information, which affects every stage of the life cycle, is costing them dearly. If you have any doubt, then consider these facts:

* processing and handling information accounts for an alarming 70 per cent of the industries' capital expenditure and operating expenses;

* systems that generate and manage data that is not integrated result in data duplication and inconsistency;

* at least 50 per cent of an engineer's time is spent looking for information such as vendor or reference data from other disciplines;

* for every project one engineering procurement contractor invests two man years taking design information into the fabrication phase;

* handover costs from one phase of a typical medium-sized project to the next range from $3-10 million;

* 80 per cent of design changes are caused by lack of, or the wrong, data.

Individual parts of the process plant industry can no longer work in isolation. Today's industry is global, characterised by complex design, engineering and construction projects in remote areas. Collaborative teams often work in different offices - and, increasingly, around the world on `follow the sun' engineering projects. Competitive pressures compel engineering firms to execute projects more rapidly and efficiently, providing greater value to the project and the client by reducing costs.

Indeed, owner/operators are already demanding a role in the overall decision-making chain that used to be the domain of engineering procurement and construction companies (EPCs).

In Intergraph's experience, Internet browser-based technology benefits both Internet and intranet users by providing quick, point-and-click display, navigation and reporting functions - allowing them to access and create reports on instrumentation, design, operations and maintenance data throughout the process life cycle. It can also reduce by 30 to 40 per cent the time users spend searching for and reporting on plant-related information.

For example, in an Internet engineering environment (such as Intergraph's SmartPlant Explorer software) a user can select an object, such as a valve or control component, and display associated information such as attribute data, design calculations, installation reports, all types of document (including drawings and models) and project standards. They can also produce complete, detailed reports including lists of equipment, instruments, lines, piping segments and so on.

More importantly, perhaps, unlike some previous technologies, this type of web-based, client/server software is easy to use, making its adoption less of an issue for engineers and owner operators alike.

Leading EPC firm Foster Wheeler uses this environment in its New Jersey office to access and share information, P&ID drawings, and related documents. `I see it as a valuable tool in accessing and linking data between our offices worldwide', says FW's CAD design operation manager Steve Gilberti. It allows plant designers, as well as anyone inside or outside the company, to easily locate data by using familiar tools such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.

Gilberti believes there is also a need for this web-based approach among plant owners and operators. `It is difficult to take native plant design and show the owner/operator a great benefit in operations and maintenance. This is a different story. Here, you finally have a low-cost, highly intelligent data source for your operations and maintenance. This...will benefit plant owner/operators and EPC firms alike.'

Gilberti's observations about owner/operators ring true. It is not that they want to do the work of EPCs but rather that, in order to remain competitive, they need to ensure design and construction information can be re-used for the life cycle of the plant - well in excess of 30 years.

Consider all the stages from front-end engineering through to decommissioning in the life cycle of process plant. The engineering data that is pivotal in the beginning remains central throughout. This data is repeatedly referenced during operations, maintenance, production, revamps and regulatory compliance.

Traditional working practices have caused fragmentation of information and activities amongst disciplines. In the modern enterprise, systems must integrate and interact with each other, supporting business processes and information flow.

The goal is to provide global access to one logical source of accurate and consistent plant information for use across an organisation, its suppliers and contractors and throughout the life cycle of the plant.

The ability of the Internet to help the process industries achieve that goal is no longer an idea, but a reality.

Across the plant life cycle stages many areas need to be considered, including process simulation, plant layout and design, costing and scheduling, materials management, process optimisation and enterprise resource planning.

Intergraph's approach has been to work with the other leading vendors in the process industry to provide an engineering framework - an environment and infrastructure that enables standardisation, integration and information access across the partners' systems. It also addresses engineering change control and change management. With its partners such as AspenTech, debis Systemhaus and Icarus, this includes sharing of core technologies for optimum integration.

However, while the vision and goal is for a data-driven plant based on industry standards such as POSC/Caesar (see panel on page 47), the reality for today and the foreseeable future is that traditional documents will play a key part in plant information management. In practice, plant information is a mix of documents, assets and data.

In Intergraph's experience, for both greenfield and brownfield sites, a modular approach to the problem allows companies to define their own area of primary focus - documents, assets or a data warehouse - safe in the knowledge that a growth and development path is available to achieve the ultimate solution.

When the £1.25billion Britannia gas condensate project in the North Sea was conceived in the early 1990s its far-sighted planners decided that all engineering information required for safe and efficient operations throughout the operational lifetime of the production platform would be captured electronically during the design and construction phases.

For Britannia, with documents as the primary medium, its initial focus was on document management and the seamless integration with the project's bespoke maintenance management system. An Intergraph Directa system was adopted for the management of documents and associated data.

Before Britannia went operational, every group was asked for a priority list of documents to be included so that from day one there would be a nucleus of scanned and electronic documents on the system covering issues such as safety, production and environmental performance.

As project transitional co-ordinator Clive Randall explained: `Once you have instilled the concept of a single source for documentation in the culture, you have a procedure that will put the latest version of a document into your management system.'

This is crucial not just for safety but also because, with revenue from the field running at around £2 million a day, any interruption to Britannia production must be minimised.

`We have a maintenance system to look after issues such as inspection, replacement and overhaul, with links to Directa to access relevant documents,' said Randall. `In the case of unscheduled maintenance, Directa will come into its own because we know that we can rely on getting to the right version of documentation needed to deal with the problem. Speed of access to information is vital.'

The industry is now reviewing a common equipment database of components from all suppliers, to provide an electronic catalogue library. The suppliers would maintain and update their product information. Enquirers would be able to feed in the parameters of what they wanted to buy and ask for a search of suppliers who could meet this need.

Longer term, there are plans to include stock information, price information and delivery times. This e-business approach would shorten the supply chain dramatically.

The benefits that flow from adopting a data-driven plant lifecycle approach are tangible at whatever level you start the process. PE

Tricia Shaw is regional marketing manager at Intergraph Process & Building Solutions, a division of Intergraph Corporation.