Plant Design Management System - PDMS

PDMS is a program for 3D planning of different types of facilities, such as power plants, different process facilities and is also used in the marine industry. PDMS is the world's most popular and used package for such a purpose. PDMS is one product of company AVEVA.

General

On this page we would like to give one short overview about PDMS . These chapters should be helpfull to someone who is completely new in PDMS and is may be willing to start introducing PDMS in his company. All details, technical descriptions and other issues are normally clarified with AVEVA as a package supplier.
PDMS (Plant Design Management System), as said, enables you to design a 3D computer model of a process plant. PDMS allows you to see a full colour–shaded representation of the plant model as your design progresses, adding an extremely impressive level of realism to traditional drawing office techniques.
In the model you can store huge amounts of data referring to position, size, part numbers and geometric relationships for the various parts of the plant. This model becomes a single source of engineering data for all of the sections and disciplines involved in a design project.
All this information is stored in databases. There are many different output channels from the databases through which information can be passed on. These range from reports on data stored in the databases, fully annotated and dimensioned engineering drawings, to fullcolour–shaded 3D walk–through capabilities which allow you to visualize the complete design model.
Even with the advanced features of PDMS, the main form of communication between the plant designer and the fabricator remains the drawings. Without engineering drawings the task of building a plant would be almost impossible. To meet this requirement, PDMS can produce numerous types of drawing, ranging from complex 3D illustrations to fully annotated and dimensioned arrangement drawings and piping isometrics.

Using PDMS in the Plant Design process

The sequence of operations (greatly simplified) in a new plant design project would be:
• Create the project and set up administrative controls (using the PDMS Admin module).
• Create the Catalogue and Specification data from which standard design Components can be
selected (using the Paragon and Specon modules).
• Design the various parts of the plant, referencing items from the catalogues (using the Design
module).
• Check the design for errors and inconsistencies (Design).
• Document the design in the form of drawings (general arrangement, construction, assembly,
and isometric), reports and material lists (Draft and Isodraft modules).
You may also wish to transfer design data to or from other systems at various stages.

PDMS modules

PDMS is split into a number of modules which are used at different stages in the plant design process. Chapter 3 contains details of the PDMS user documentation, which describes the PDMS modules and how to use them.

Design modules

Design
Design is the main, graphically driven constructor module within PDMS. Design enables a full sized three-dimensional plant model to be defined in the Design database, with selected views of the current state of the design shown on the graphics screen as the design progresses.
All parts of the design (including equipment, and piping and structural steelwork layouts) can be created. Component selection is provided through Specifications that dictate which Catalogue Components can be used. Each part of the design model can be displayed in colour-shaded ‘solid’ colour-coded representations for ease of interpretation.
Design can check for interferences (clashes) between items created in the design. There is a very flexible reporting capability that can be used to produce a wide variety of design documents - from bulk Material Take Off to detailed nozzle schedules.
Piping isometrics can be previewed in Design (without having to switch to the Isometric
generation module, Isodraft).
Spooler
Spooler is used for pipework spooling. It allows the designer to split the pipework design into logical sections (spools) ready for fabrication. The spool data can then be output as isometric drawings using Isodraft (see below).

Drafting modules

Draft
Draft enables dimensioned and annotated scale drawings of selected parts of the design model to be produced. All information needed to create the drawing is accessible via a single drawing database, which extracts data to be used for dimensioning directly from the Design database.
Annotation can be in the form of labels attached to design elements, or 2D annotation such as drawing notes, or drawing frames, tables, lines etc.
Annotation attached to a Design data element on the drawing will move if the 3D position of the element changes. Dimensions are recalculated automatically every time the drawing is updated.
Isodraft
Isodraft produces automatically annotated and dimensioned piping isometric drawings, with associated material lists, of specified sections of the plant pipework. The content and style of the drawings can be chosen to suit the needs of pipe fabricators and/or erectors and can include a wide range of optional features to suit local requirements.
Other facilities include:
• Full material lists.
• Automatic spool identification.
• Automatic splitting of complex drawings.
• User-defined drawing sheets.

Catalogue and specification management modules

Paragon
Used to generate and modify catalogues, with facilities for catalogue component construction with visual control (including 3D colour-shaded representations of the item being designed). The catalogues in PDMS serve a similar purpose to the manufacturers’ catalogues, which you would refer to when using conventional design methods. The PDMS component catalogue is used to specify the geometry, connection information, obstruction and detailing data of steelwork, piping, and HVAC and cable tray components.
It should be noted that, where the design data is specific to a particular design, catalogues and specifications may be specific to a company but general to a number of projects in that company. For example, the same catalog component may also appear in other designs proceeding at the same time.
Specon
Used to create or modify the component specifications within the catalogue database. Specifications define the suitability of catalog components for particular types of use.
Propcon
Used to create or modify the properties database, which holds details of those properties of the components and materials which may be needed for stress analysis or safety auditing of all or part of a design.

Project administration modules

Admin
Large plants designed using PDMS will usually be divided into individual areas (either physical areas or design areas), depending on the physical size, complexity and configuration of the plant. On a large Project, the System Administrator will first agree with Project and Design Management, the breakdown of the PDMS Project into sections which:
• Are relevant to the needs of project reporting and control.
• Form reasonable design subdivisions with sensible match-lines and design content.
• Enable enough designers to work in parallel with simultaneous access to carry out design tasks
In much the same way as in a design office (with its section leader, draughts people, etc.), PDMS has Teams, the members of which are called Users. These Teams can consist of any number of Users and can be organised by discipline or physical work areas.
Admin includes a database integrity checking utility, used to check for inconsistencies in the contents of the databases and to derive statistical information about the use of the database storage capacity.
Admin also allows the System Administrator to reconfigure a project. This may be necessary:
• to compact databases at intervals, freeing disk space
• to upgrade PDMS projects when the database structure changes
• to compare the contents of two similar databases; for example, to create a modification record
Lexicon
Is used by the System Administrator to set up user-defined attributes. Attributes defined in this way are held in a Lexicon (or dictionary) database and may then be assigned to elements in other databases as required. UDAs allow additional information to be stored in the databases and extracted into drawings and reports.
Miscellaneous
PDMS has various functionalities which allow different operations to be performed. However very often additional PDMS tools are required to perform some actions in one PDMS project. PDMS tools can be programmed in PML or by newer PDMS versions partly also in .NET.
PDMS consulting can be provided by software developer AVEVA, but specialized companies could also be engaged for the same purpose. PDMS consulting can cover very different issues, starting with project management, change management, project setup, to some very specific project requirements.