FEATURE DIGITAL PLANT DOCUMENTATION TOOLS
PLANT EXPANSION AT BASF ANTWERP: DIGITAL PLANT DOCUMENTATION SPEEDS UP LOOP CHECKS
Fig 1: Loop checks in view: With digital plant documentation, project leaders always have an overview of the current testing status (Copyright: Rösberg)
Martin Dubovy, head of plant solutions at Rösberg Engineering, explains the benefits of the LiveDOK tool during both the plant commissioning and operational phases
E
very time a process plant is newly built, modernised or expanded, its
reliability has to be exhaustively tested before it can go into operation. Plant constructors or operators implement loop checks to ensure that all loops are functioning correctly, that the sensors and actuators assigned to them are correctly parameterised and that they are interacting as planned. Plants in the process industry often have several hundred loops that need to be tested by consistently following checklists. If several teams are working in shifts in order to speed up acceptance, it is almost impossible to keep an overview with paper checklists. In this situation, digital plant documentation is the remedy. Anyone who has been involved in
commissioning a plant in the process industry is familiar with the time- consuming procedure: checklists are generated (as far as the plant planning tool allows) for the loop checks which are one of the essential preliminaries. Then all loops have to be rigorously tested in
the field. The results are noted on the checklist. At the end of the day, each employee returns a stack of checklists to the project manager. Depending on the size of the project, he accumulates files full of documents which he has to go through if he wants to get an overview of the present status of the project. If testing is being done in several shifts to speed things up, a proper handover from one shift to the next is basically not possible. If shiftwork is not used, it would be possible for the project manager to catch up on his overview after work – overnight, so to speak – and then prepare the test assignments for the next day. However, this is extremely laborious, and who wants to manage a project by working a night shift for weeks? Everything is a great deal easier with
the digital plant documentation tool LiveDOK NG by Rösberg. Many plant constructors and plant operators use the tool for documentation in the operational phase. It renders valuable services in commissioning, Factory Acceptance
16 DECEMBER 2019/JANUARY 2020 | PROCESS & CONTROL
Tests, and of course loop checks: during checks, the tool enables data to be directly digitally recorded, meaning that the project manager has an overview of the test status in real time. This enables good planning and the effective deployment of employees, and has a determining influence on the time management of a project. “I assume that by using the software, the time for loop checks can be cut by as much as half, depending on the application concerned” said Helge Laubach, account manager plant solutions at Rösberg. How does the digital documentation
Martin Dubovy (top), head of plant solutions at Rösberg Engineering
Helge Laubach (above), account manager plant solutions at Rösberg Engineering
tool support loop checks? With I&C-CAE planning tools like ProDOK, for instance, (see Technology Box 1) checklists can be generated for the stored loops. These are transferred to LiveDOK in PDF format. The project manager then distributes their individual tasks to the employees who are carrying out the tests, usually via a tablet. When working through the tests they can tick off the individual steps on the checklist, and also stamp
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