1.1 Plant and Product life-histories as identified by Toyo Engineering Company.
1.2 Combination of life-histories in the VRIDGE project.
1.3 The life history of a project enterprise related to its life-cycle architecture.
1.4 The engineering company and its relation with the plant engineering project:
The railway crossing diagram depicting the relationship of the plant with the product. The two life-histories cross: as the plant operates the product is being built:
Figure 1
A similar railway crossing diagram could be drawn for the plant engineering process. The plant is the product of this process.
Figure 2
The August 1996, Melbourne Meeting of the VRIDGE project identified three life-histories as depicted in Figures 1 and 2. These are represented together in Fig.3:
Figure 3
The life-histories can also be laid out above one another. The two-way black arrows in Fig.4 indicate that the three life-histories are not independent; there is frequent communication among them.
Figure 4
The Plant Engineering process is typically carried out as a separate project (i.e. a one-off process), therefore we can say that plant enginering is a project enterprise:
Figure 5. Plant enginering is a project enterprise.
Figures 2 to 5 earlier showed the progression in time of the plant engineering process. We now relate the components, or stages, of this life history to the layers of a life-cycle architecture.
Fig.6a shows that project enterprises progress in lock-step with the project's mission fulfillment tasks.
Fig.6a shows many of these activities being carried out in parallel.
Also, area 3 and 4 activities follow (or predict) the needs of area 5 ("in lock-step").
Figure 6a. How time flows in a project enterprise
Each activity in the life history of a project enterprise is composed of instances of life-cycle activities (identification, concept formation, definition, etc). Initially the setting-up of the project follows the life-cycle layers: the project is identified, then its mission (concept) is defined. This is shown in Fig.6a as area (1).
However, after this, not all the project's requirements, design, etc are determined in the beginning of the project. The engineering company that sets up the project enterprise specifies, designs and builds only the project management component, and then gives the neccesary resources and authority to project management to design and build by itself the rest of the project enterprise as the project progresses in time.
Project management has two major types of tasks:
a) Planning, scheduling and controlling (dispatching) the plant design, detailed design and building etc. activities. This is shown on Fig.6a as area (2).
b) Specifying, designing and planning the forthcoming engineering activities and providing them with required resources. These management tasks are shown in Fig.6a as areas (3) and (4).
Importantly, the less innovation and unpredictability there is in the particular project the more of the "area
3 activities" can be carried out early in the project (or before the project). It should be an important
aim of the VRIDGE Globeman 21 project to develop reusable models for project enterprise, this will result an accelerated
flow of the engineering process and will make it easier to predict its cost as well as increase the efficiency
and effectiveness of the bidding process.
For demonstration purposes Fig.6b shows the case of a project enterprise (such as VRIDGE Inc.), where the plant
engineering project covers the design (D), detailed design (DD) and the building (B) of the plant. It can be seen
that each mission fulfillment activity in area 5 has a corresponding activity in the plant engineering project's
life history.
The life-cycle diagram also identifies activities (areas 1,2,3 and 4) that are not traditionally represented in a plant engineering project's Gantt chart. In reality the plant engineering project is not progressing without any iterations, therefore at least some activities in areas 3 and 4 need to be carried out during the project's execution -- according to the needs of the engineering activities area (5).
Fig 6b show the case where the project's life history is more predictable then in the example given in Fig.6a. Therefore many area 3 activities are carried out early in the project's history (or before - see area 3'). This is made possible through requirements- and design-level models of plant engineering such as the models developed in the thesis of Mr Yoichi Nishi.
As a result of the VRIDGE experiement (i.e. the specification, design and execution of VRIDGE Inc) TEC should have a similar, but elaborated model that reflects the fact that VRIDGE Inc. is a global plant engineering processes.
Figure 6b . Typical plant engineering project's life-cycle layers and their relationships with the life history of the project. This project is using predefined requirements - and design level models of project enterprise.
Plant engineering projects are typically carried out by engineering companies. The engineering company creates the plant engineering project to respond to tenders / contracts. This "project enterprise" must be created and executed quickly and efficiently since this determines the agility of the engineering firm.
The task of the engineering company :
The tasks of the plant enginering project enterprise:
This relationship between the engineering company and the enginering project enterprise can be depicted as in Fig.7. (Fig.7 extends the relationships explained in Fig.5.). The operations in the engineering company support all project-related activities during the project.
Figure 7 The Engineering Company creates the project
enterprise and supports it throughout the project's duration..
To better demonstrate the engineering company's relationship with the plant engineering project enterprise and to show the relationship among the rest of these four entities it is better to represent their respective life-cycles as below.
Fig.8 shows the life-cycle architecture of four entities. Life-cycles are represented in abbreviated graphical form.
Each life-cycle diagram is split into two parts: the "service part" (i.e. mission fulfillment part), and the "management/ control part".
The service part is the component carrying out all tasks needed to fulfill the mission of the given entity. The management/ control part is carrying out the tasks needed to manage this mission fulfillment activity. The red dots in the operation layers signify the activities which carry out the main mission of the given entity.
Figure 8
The example in Fig.8 demonstrates the case where the plant engineering project carries out the design (D), detailed design (DD) and building (B) of the plant. In this example the plant is in turn responsible for product design (D), product detailed design (DD) and product building/manufacture (B), i.e.
The complexity of the VRIDGE Globeman 21 project can be decreased by separately considering three relevant life-cycles (the fourth one, the life cycle of "Xylene as a product", could also be represented, but is not of particular interest here).
We identified three entities, the VRIDGE Demonstrator, Vridge Inc., and the product of Vridge Inc., the Virtual Xylene Fractionation Unit. What their life-cycles are and how they relate is demonstrated below.
Based on the considerations in Sections 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 below we mapped each life-cycle to a PERA diagram:
In the framework of the Globeman 21 VRIDGE project we shall
The mission of the VRIDGE demonstrator is
b) To be a simulator and visualisation environment for design verification purposes;
c) To be able to create and support a plant engineering process enterprise (VRIDGE Inc.).
The VRIDGE demonstrator can be considered as a prototype of a small engineering company.
Figure 9
VRIDGE Inc is a project enterprise with the mission to:
b) Manage and carry out the detailed design process using subcontractors;
c) Produce a simulation model of the XFU, called Virtual XFU;
d) Manage the building of the VXFU's control panel (Replica Control Panel, or RCP) using subcontractors;
e) Integrate the simulation model with the RCP;
f) Verify the VXFU. (VRIDGE Inc. will do so by testing the VXFU using the VRIDGE Demonstrator 's a simulator and visualisation environment.)
VRIDGE Inc. can be considered as a prototype of an engineering project enterprise.
Figure 10
The VXFU is a prototype of chemical plant designed and built by TEC and its subcontractors.
Figure 11
Go to:
VRIDGE Demonstrator life-cycle
Vridge Inc life-cycle
Virtual Xylene Fractionation Unit (VXFU) life-cycle
