Article | REF: AG3800 V2

The Engineering information systems

Author: Philippe GUILLET

Publication date: July 10, 2016

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ABSTRACT

Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) companies are involved in the different phases of design or modifications of an industrial site. They set up the digital model of the site. This digital model is delivered to the owner-operator, loaded into their information systems and enriched during the lifecycle of the site. Owner-operator requirements regarding the content and quality of the digital model are ever more demanding. This article describes how the EPC companies are rising to the challenge by improving the quality and effectiveness of their services based on application software, technologies of cloud computing and laser scanning, and standardization and interoperability.

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AUTHOR

  • Philippe GUILLET: Consultant - Former IT Manager at CF Ingénierie, Paris, France

 INTRODUCTION

Engineering departments work on industrial plants when they are being created, modified or extended, on greenfield or existing sites. To carry out their missions, these Engineering Departments provide a wide range of services including analysis, simulation, design, equipment procurement and construction, for which they use numerous software solutions.

Over the years, these software solutions have been enhanced with new features. For the most part, they have achieved a good level of performance. However, their ability to respond effectively to users' "business" needs is no longer the only criterion for their use within industrial site project management processes.

Engineering software solutions must be able to communicate with each other and with the flow of information generated by the project. Interruptions and inconsistencies in this flow of information are in fact sources of unjustified time spent, non-conformities, errors and delays for the project.

Information flows are built around data and software, including graphics software, which must fit into this flow and manage technical data. As a result, graphic representation has become just one of the many ways of representing data, with the plan being the result of extraction and formatting from databases.

During the course of the project, Engineering builds a true digital model that reflects the "physical" world. This digital model, used during the site's operational phase, must not be a partial and approximate reflection of the physical world, but must conform to it.

The fundamental objectives of those involved in the industrial site project are, firstly, to ensure that production starts on time, on budget and to the quality expected, and, for the Engineers, to implement a transfer of "As-Built" information to the Operators that is sufficiently complete and accurate to enable operations and maintenance to run smoothly throughout the life of the site.

The efficient management of technical information on a site and its assets is crucial to the site's safety and profitability. The operators of industrial sites, Engineering's customers, need this digital model to feed their own information systems, without re-entering or modifying data.

Operators are therefore required to specify the information they need, its nature, type and format, and to validate it before integrating it into their own systems.

Engineering information systems and their software solutions are therefore undergoing a fundamental evolution, characterized by a migration to data management, the integration of this data into a project flow, and the integration of the Operator into this flow. The Operator...

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KEYWORDS

software   |   cloud computing   |   standardization   |     |   Engineering Procurement Construction


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