PLM for plant design projects?

When I started out on my PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) journey more than a decade ago it was hard for me, coming originally from oil & gas, to understand the difference between  the functional decomposition (tag structure) used in multi-discipline plant design, and the EBOM (Engineering Bill Of Material) used in traditional manufacturing industry. It was easy however, to see the language differences and the fact that PLM focused on BOM and serial production

Having worked with PLM in different industries it is now clear for me that PLM can have a significant role in project-focused industries like in plant design projects. What PLM systems are really good at is creating a globally accessible information backbone, connect this information to processes and connect the processes to people to ensure that the right information is there at the right time so that people can take decisions based on the latest approved “version of the truth”.

Using a PLM system can give a lot of benefits over the traditional way of doing plant design projects, where information and experience tend to be locked in different information repositories and systems in each project. Each project has its own IT infrastructure and setup of tools, and it becomes very hard to reuse knowledge, processes and parts of the design from one project to the next.

If all design information was in a PLM system, an EPC could consolidate all the plant design disciplines, connect the design information as deliverables in the project plan and monitor the projects progress in real-time.  Change management processes could be enforced, design templates could be used, partial designs could be copied from one project to another, equipment requirements could be selected from a catalog and all of it across projects. These are just a few of the benefits that could be harvested.

So why has this not been done a long time ago?

Well, in my view there are two main factors.

One is that there have not been sufficient drivers to do so in the past. One of the primary drivers for changing from a project centric approach to an approach that promotes reuse, harmonization of processes and standardization is cost pressure and competition. We’ve seen this in every industry that has adopted PLM. It’s not until the margins really suffer that PLM gains any real traction. At the moment we see that as a result of the above mentioned factors, there is a growing interest in PLM among several large EPCs.

 The other factor is the actual design process and the tools used. They differ quite a lot between plant and product design.

The difference in process however is not the main challenge. There are several PLM systems that are flexible enough to allow such processes to be created.

The main challenge lies in the fact that in order for a PLM system to work effectively, all the design information must flow from the design tools into the PLM platform. Not many PLM systems today have good integrations to plant design tools, so hence it is difficult to leverage all the benefits that a PLM system could bring. In product design it is quite different, since almost all PLM systems have integrations to most product design tools.

So am I saying that PLM should not handle plant design projects?

Actually no, because there is one other development in the industry that has led to a golden opportunity to get all the needed information into PLM systems and start harvesting the benefits.

There has been a lot of pressure recent years especially from Owner/Operators to standardize information exchange between all the parts of the value chain. From Owner/Operator, through EPCs and  product companies.

The need to consolidate internal disciplines for the EPC, but also to communicate with outside parties like product companies and especially to support the big handover of information from EPC to Owner Operator after installation and commissioning has led to a lot of focus on standardizing information exchange. One such example is ISO 15926 and the preferred exchange format XMpLant. Most plant design authoring tools are claiming to support this standard today. In my view, this is the key to bringing all of the engineering information under process control in a PLM system. From here it can be shared with internal parties, but also to externals, like the Owner/Operator or product companies.

Essentially, this is killing two birds with one stone.

What is my conclusion?

PLM systems “out of the box” are not suited to support plant design projects. However, PLM systems are very much suited as a platform for consolidating plant design information and processes across all disciplines in a plant design project provided that they support information exchange in a standardized manner like with ISO 15926 and XMpLant.

Such a PLM system would solve two major headaches for the EPCs. Firstly, the internal consolidation and follow up of the internal disciplines, and secondly the ability to exchange information with other stakeholders in the project in a standardized manner.

Those PLM platforms that are capable of scaling well enough, support standardized information exchange and handle the sheer amount of information involved in handling multiple plant design projects could have a bright future in this domain.