Crossroads to Integrate 3D- 3D to 2D with layers

[Anonymous]

We have come to a crossroads in our company on integrating 3D. We are in the oil and gas industry: designing systems that include pump pads, tanks, and pipelines. We have been attempting to integrate Plant 3D for about 3 years and/or Inventor for the past couple months. 

Our goal: Mechanical uses a 3D base model and exports to a 2D base file to be XREF'd for other disciplines (electrical and civil). The trick: We have 2D layers that need to be followed - the layers have plot styles, lineweights, colors, etc. 

We have looked into several solutions. Does anbody have opinions, work-arounds, links to other forums, or other ideas?

Inventor - Great with 3D, but the layers it exports are created from the 3D geometry, not by part. 

Factory Design Suite - Have not tried this yet, but it looks like parts can be set to a layer and then exported to 2D. My concern is that it may not handle our tanks and pipes very well. 

Plant 3D - It seems to be more difficult for 3D modeling since it is not parametric. We are still not sure if it can handle layers on a part basis. It also does not look as pretty as Inventor (no offense). 

I know someone will think, "why not switch every discipline to 3D?", but it's unrealistic to think every discipline can go to 3D until contractors decide to recieve 3D PDF's as their drawing file instead of 2D drawings. Sorry guys.