3D design tools help EPCs and owner/operators alike
As energy projects become larger and more complex, engineering/procurement/construction contractors (EPCs) become much more dependent upon 3D design tools. Moreover, data and model management, project management, engineering change management, and design collaboration across multi-discipline engineering organizations is essential to the overall design/build process.
As the demand for energy increases steadily across the globe, leading EPCs deal with new projects that span multiple power generation sectors, each with its own set of requirements and technologies that make projects within each sector distinct in terms of designing, building, and commissioning.
EPCs use a variety of engineering design and data management applications from design/build solution providers. This very heterogeneous environment significantly challenges the EPCs using such a range of engineering design tools, with multiple formats, models, and configuration management frameworks. Additionally, since the lion’s share of today’s EPC business is global with a variety of stakeholders ranging from owner/operators to extended supply chains for equipment mandates, a company’s design engineering solutions must be both open and highly collaborative.
3D design and EPC projects
Today’s design solutions offer a broad range of design/build capabilities. For some time now, suppliers have based design applications on 3D modeling. These provide the EPCs with the ability to model in 3D space. For offshore and other energy sector projects, 3D modeling is a critical aspect of design work, which has become essential for structural design, and for configuring all the equipment and infrastructure. Modeling in 3D is the most effective way to do space control, and most EPC tools provide automation features to reduce the labor required to lay out, detail, and revise infrastructure such as pipes and raceways. Additionally, these 3D design tools perform clash analysis to determine interferences between structures, equipment, and infrastructure. They can also adapt designs to various industry and owner/operator standards or practices.
Designing in 3D space provides the ability to visualize and integrate multiple engineering disciplines, plus the flexibility to make configuration and structural changes throughout the design process.
As projects grow in size and complexity, especially in energy-related projects, EPCs have come to depend on their 3D design tools. Moreover, data and model management, project management, engineering change management, and design collaboration across multi-discipline engineering organizations have become essential to the overall design/build process. Managing the mass of information generated by design/build requirements for major projects represents a primary challenge.
The need for collaboration
EPC engineering managers have made it clear that they would like better data management platforms with a more collaborative engineering design environment for their geographically dispersed engineering teams. They see the need to move to a central data repository for all design models, build data, and equipment and asset data. Moreover, beyond engineering organizations, they need a highly collaborative platform to support the wide range of partners, owner/operators, and stakeholders throughout the global operations typical of today’s large EPCs.
Information management and interoperability of models and data are critical to doing business and managing large projects efficiently and successfully. EPCs agree that interoperability should be standards based, as in ISO 15926. Major plant design software providers support this standard for data integration, sharing, exchange, and hand-over between computer systems.
While the current design solution providers offer robust building information modeling/management (BIM) systems, EPCs would like to see better data management and design collaboration capabilities across all their various engineering organizations and equipment providers. This is why most EPC design/build processes still involve a mixture of commercial software and in-house applications, which can include data management. While EPC organizations recognize the need to improve data management and collaboration, they are reluctant to rely on their design software providers to handle all the specialized in-house applications, data formats, and handover information that their customers demand. Further, the EPCs want to provide better data management services for their owner/operator customers, especially at facility/plant handover.
Data management
Information management is as important to the owner-operators as it is to EPCs. In fact, most owner/operators consider the handover process (where all of the plant/facility drawings, layouts, equipment, and infrastructure information are handed over to the operating organization) one of the most critical aspects of the project. Not only is this engineering information essential to the operation of the facility, it must be managed and organized properly so it can be accessed readily and available to the operations personnel during plant life. The owner/operators clearly need the same information management and collaborative engineering platforms that the EPCs obtain from their engineering design software suppliers.
Currently, most owner-operators do not demand a 3D design model from the EPC at project completion. Nearly all of them want the asset information turned over in a form they can import into the operations/asset management/maintenance/management systems they use to operate and maintain the facility. This generally takes the form of 2D drawings and other equipment/asset database population that operations personnel are able to use without the specialized training needed for a 3D design environment.
Owner/operators are beginning to show interest in 3D virtual simulation for use in training and safety incident response and mitigation. Virtual simulation tools also are beginning to be applied to the pre-construction phase of new projects where simulation can detect interferences and streamline construction activities.
A complementary technology applied to the virtual simulation area is laser scanning and point cloud analysis to accurately capture existing physical structures and equipment. The point cloud data is imported into a 3D design application to generate a 3D model, which can be used for rework and refurbish.
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