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Which Plant design solution works best?

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Message 1 of 12
dpreezm
6015 Views, 11 Replies

Which Plant design solution works best?

Hey everybody.

 

Can any expert who has worked on several plant design software help me with a selection?

 

My situation is that the company I work for (Global Petrochem giant) needs a software upgrade FAST! All the plant engineering drawings iso's, layouts mechanical vessels, equipment and structures are still done in 2D!!!

 

I have started here as the first resident draftsman and the ropes have been given to me to steer the changes that is desperately needed! We have duplications of line numbers, no line numbers and drawings which have not been updated since I was a pre-schooler... So I'm looking for a solution to remedy this and to do things right from now on.

 

So, I have been looking at various software packages on a sales brochure basis only and each and everyone sounds good but I'm leaning more towards Plant 3D however a CADWorx demo was presented to us and it also looked quite good. Bentley presence within SA is almost non-existent so just on the fact that there is no support means no.

 

In short there are three packages which we are interested in, Intergraph Smartplant or CADWorx or Autodesk Plant design suite Ultimate...

 

Smartplant is a bit too expensive... Lets just leave it at that. Therefore CADWorx or Plant 3D.

 

Which one of those platforms will be best in an owner/operator situation where we also do our own in-house engineering work (smaller scaled projects) BUT, when we have contractors doing our large scaled projects we also want to control and administrate the "process and engineering data" from the models etc. When they use software like PDMS, Smartplant, CADWorx, AutoPlant or even Plant 3D?

 

Please give non-bias  facts, recommendations whatever to help me steer this. I know that there must be 100's of these posts...

 

Regards,

-=StevieWonder=-
"Trust me, I'm a draftsman"
11 REPLIES 11
Message 2 of 12
dave.wolfe
in reply to: dpreezm

I think it all depends on what fits your process best.  Plant 3D is young, but has a better whole project approach and MUCH better reports. 

 

CADWorx 2013 now has a new spec/catalog editor though, so I'm sure there are bugs that would have to be worked out of its new pipe routing system.

 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Plant-3D/Switching-from-CadWorx-to-Plant-3D/td-p/3320655

 

Our company, ECAD Inc., was the number one CADWorx reseller for 13 years, and we decided it was the right time to switch to Plant 3d.

 

Also, I believe the reseller makes a big difference in your experience. 

Dave Wolfe
Isaiah 57:15



Tips and Tricks on our blog: ASTI blog
EXPERT ELITE MEMBER
Plant 3D Wish list
Message 3 of 12
dpreezm
in reply to: dave.wolfe

Thanks for the feedback!

 

I was an AutoCad & Inventor user a few years ago and then had to migrate to Bentley systems due to a company change and then a few years down the line I suggested Inventor and the department migrated to it and have been using it again ever since (only for pressure equipment).

 

Now... I'm working for a new company but on a much larger scale with regards to documentation of drawings and its downstream documentation and we use Bentley systems again (vicious circle, I know). It seems to me the trend is to revert back to Autodesk but given that as you stated P3D is still young and CADWorx might have bugs in their new and improved software... The fact that P3D is young, does it mean limited functionality or just we have not sorted out all the shortcuts yet? Which in my opinion is better than having a "double click spacebar tap" program that crashes or corrupts data at every autosave! ( I'm not saying that is the case with other solutions, it might or it might not)

 

The heart of the problem is that we did not have a resident drawing office for years and only recent it has come of age and due to the fact that there was no "ownership" of the work the design contractors did, a lot of inherent mistakes and documentation slips have through the years compounded to such an extent that you cannot trust a drawing or a line number on a P&ID for that matter!

 

Now it is my odyssey to find a solution and fix the ever so increasing headache in parallel to doing our in house design and drafting work, hence my dilemma of which software can do the best job with my limited resource in a cost effective and productive manner and yet still providing the most accurate results.

 

Oh before I forget, how Bi-directional is P3D with analysis software such as PVElite and Caesar II?

 

Wew...

 

 

-=StevieWonder=-
"Trust me, I'm a draftsman"
Message 4 of 12
dave.wolfe
in reply to: dpreezm

I meant that the workarounds are all developed yet.  For example, yesterday we figured out a way to format generated iso file names to include the project number, line number, and then revision.  It wasn't something that was documented or exposed in the UI, but because of the way they developed the isometric generator, it's extremely flexible.

 

Autodesk is still adding functionality, but IMO it is a great platform to commit to.

Dave Wolfe
Isaiah 57:15



Tips and Tricks on our blog: ASTI blog
EXPERT ELITE MEMBER
Plant 3D Wish list
Message 5 of 12
dpreezm
in reply to: dave.wolfe

Allright fair enough, I have to agree that no software will ever be an ideal or the only solution and that things improve in it's natural (in a technology POV) way.

 

Speaking of which, how easy to use and functional is the Iso generator (Seing that it is not ISOGEN)?

-=StevieWonder=-
"Trust me, I'm a draftsman"
Message 6 of 12
dgorsman
in reply to: dpreezm

One thing that may be important - CADWorx can run *without* a database.  That means less support requirements.  Naturally, you don't get the benefits either.  And as a "large" company you likely have some SQL Server or equivalent architecture and management in place.  But if you have a lot of small projects which need to spool up quickly and have limited hours not having to create those projects can make a difference.

 

Make sure you check out ortho/GA drawing creation in both programs too.

 

For isometric drawings be sure to check out the Isometrics WS project in the Labs - online isometric creation via PCF file.  There's a few intellectual property issues that may be of concern, and I'd *really* like to get something other than PCF, but it's still a cool concept especially if you have geographically distributed offices.

----------------------------------
If you are going to fly by the seat of your pants, expect friction burns.
"I don't know" is the beginning of knowledge, not the end.


Message 7 of 12
dpreezm
in reply to: dgorsman

Yes we do, SAP is our data management system, to be honest I've only worked at small to mid scale project firms and we rarely relied on "data management" systems. Alot of our project data was dummy stored on a central drive and all disciplines did their engineering and then referenced it in the master model for weekly model review.

 

So...I have not yet worked in an environment where like "vault" or where live models are kept on a SQL or SAP system. I would love to though because of the backup and secure facility but not much expierience in that regard...could not be too hard?

 

About the ortho creation.... Because CADWorx uses AutoCad as it's graphics module the drawing creation and annotation is exactly the same as AutoCad, that saying 2013 has an excellent feature such as "baseview"....

 

We have absolute strict IP rules so Online iso creation is a no-go...

 

-=StevieWonder=-
"Trust me, I'm a draftsman"
Message 8 of 12
ian.wolfe
in reply to: dpreezm

Hi StevieWonder

Which country do u work in? and what the company name??

 

I have worked with PDMS and Autoplant in the past, We have only been working with 3D Plant for about 6 Mths on a smallish project as a test case, and all though we have had teething problems we finished the project ahead of time. In my opinion is that it worked well and the 3d model was easy as really like the way it worked and with a little playing around got the iso's looking great ( work to be done on them) but better than isogen!!!! and the G.A's were the saving grace really!! knocked out 5 G.A's in about 2 -3 days. over all i could teach my 5 year old to use the package it was great. Dont get me wrong we did have teething problems but now where near the Admin intensity of PDMS but perhaps on par if not slightly better than Autoplant. It intergrated with Tekla seamlessly.

Cheers wolfie

 

Message 9 of 12
dpreezm
in reply to: ian.wolfe

Hi Wolfie,

 

Thanks for the comment, I am in South Africa working for the leading Oil, Gas & Petrolium manufacturer in the country if not the Southern hemisphere.

 

Thats just the thing I'm looking for a package that can provide well detailied engineering design and drawings but not all that administration as the giant PDMS or SmartPlant purely due to the fact that there is no dedicated "CAD administrator".

 

This acquisition will be but the first step in the race...

 

In a worst case scenario...what was the biggest challenge?

-=StevieWonder=-
"Trust me, I'm a draftsman"
Message 10 of 12
ian.wolfe
in reply to: dpreezm

test Ian Wolfe Senior Piping Designer ATKINS Atkins Australasia Pty Ltd (ABN 77 077 282 654), Level 13, 140 St Georges Terrace, Perth, WA 6000 | Tel: +61 8 9327 1933 Email: ian.wolfe@atkinsglobal.com Web: www.atkinsglobal.com ________________________________ This email and any attached files are confidential and copyright protected. If you are not the addressee, any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. Unless otherwise expressly agreed in writing, nothing stated in this communication shall be legally binding. The ultimate parent company of the Atkins Group is WS Atkins plc. Registered in England No. 1885586. Registered Office Woodcote Grove, Ashley Road, Epsom, Surrey KT18 5BW. A list of wholly owned Atkins Group companies registered in the United Kingdom and locations around the world can be found at http://www.atkinsglobal.com/site-services/group-company-registration-details Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.
Message 11 of 12
dave.wolfe
in reply to: dpreezm

You don't have to use the online isometrics with Plant 3D...the isometrics engine is installed with the software.

 

As with all intelligent applications, the annotation is usually not the same as AutoCAD.  CADWorx has their own functions for labelling the pipe information and Plant 3D has their own methods as well.  Plain AutoCAD doesn't have a mechanism to place intelligent linked labels (other than fields).

 

Also, since CADWorx 2013 uses object enablers now, there may be some issues with plotting and ortho creation that have not been resolved.  Not saying I know of any, just that developing custom objects takes ALOT of work as you have to duplicate the results that AutoCAD can output. 

 

I'm pretty sure baseview won't work on Plant3D or CADWorx because they both use custom objects.  I'll have to test that.

Dave Wolfe
Isaiah 57:15



Tips and Tricks on our blog: ASTI blog
EXPERT ELITE MEMBER
Plant 3D Wish list
Message 12 of 12
ian.wolfe
in reply to: dpreezm

Hi Steviewonder

I found this quite bizarre lol

 

I lived in south Africa for 23 Years

 

But I know a drafty here in Perth and we called him stevie wonder haha strange hey!!!

That's why I asked in the first place in case it was him.

 

Anyway back to it

 

Biggest challenge was initially getting the spec written and creating custom items but bear in mind we had no formal training so our own fault really but never the less we managed to get it done in about 2 weeks and iron out problems later on. We had autoplant spec for the same client and 3D Plant has a import from autoplant to 3D Plant but for us we could not get it to work.

 

But on that note from what I have seen 3D Plant 2013 seems to be heaps better in the spec writing and now that they have control valve actuators already made in 2012 u had to make them your self!

Hope that helps

 

Cheers wolfie

 

 

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