Dear Paul,
I have over 34 years of experience and am attached to
a detailed plant model engineering consultancy
organization catering to the hydrocarbon sector
(essentially refineries). We are in the business of
designing 3D plant models and extract all the required
working deliverables, like GADs, isometrics and MTOs
in 2D formats. During the last 7 years we have
executed more than a dozen processing plants through
this route. Our system is Intergraph's PDS (Plant
Design System). Here, the piping engineering
department, to which I belong, caters to almost all
the 3D modelling activities, starting from the
foundations, underground piping and equipments to the
above ground piping and on-line instruments, including
pipe supports. Our clients are quite happy with the
outcome and the result is that we are loaded with jobs
slightly beyond our dispensing capabilities.
PDS supports all the needs to a great extent.
regarding off-spec items, a thorough customization
exercise has to be taken up in the beginning. Then the
database takes care of the items and all get accounted
for in the final download of material take off. Our
judgement is that this system is adequate for our
needs. It need a responsible person to do the
administration of the project in the PDS set-up.
There is equally powerfull software called PDMS
serviced by CADCENTRE also available in the market. We
had done some evaluation of this software as well.
To begin with, we had Autoplant, which was
subsequently discarded due to various reasons. It is
rather difficult for Autoplant (Rebis) to support a
very large database which a plant demands.
Please give a thought to what I have mentioned and
decide your course of action. Lining up a third party
to do the detailing work needs a dynamic connectivity
(leased line) of the central database at the home
office as well as at the agency's office. Often this
may end up in sharing the intellectual property.
Handling the revisions in due course of engineering
also needs attention.
--- Paul Bowers <pbowers@pipingdesign.com> wrote:
> Is anyone aware of a third party company that
> creates and sells 3D models of
> process equipment?
>
> I've only worked with Rebis, which has a package
> option with which designers
> can customize various parameters of common equipment
> (centrifugal pumps,
> tanks, towers/reboilers, etc.) to create a model
> that can be inserted into
> the overall model. The piping connections have
> "connectivity" built-in, so
> that the finished model "knows" the spec of the
> connection and when running
> piping up to the nozzle, it auto-connects and
> returns an error message if
> the pipe spec doesn't match with the equipment spec.
> This is fine for the
> more common pieces one sees in process plants, but
> equipment used in pulp
> and paper or mining operations (for example) don't
> fit into the available,
> customizeable components. This means that these
> elements have to be created
> in straight 3D AutoCAD by a fairly proficient
> modeller - who may or may not
> be a piping/mechanical person - and the end result
> has no "connectivity".
>
> It would seem to be worthwhile for equipment
> manufacturers to provide these
> models themselves, but maybe it's seen as not being
> cost-effective. After
> all, a process engineer is not going to spec a piece
> of equipment purely
> based on whether it has a CAD model available. And
> for a third-party company
> to expend the time, effort and money also seems to
> be a non-starter, as such
> models would likely be easily copied without having
> to pay the developer.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
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