Document management throughout plant construction

Case study: Use of Document Management Systems At Amoco

Electronic system can improve design and communications between engineers, contractors and operators

D.C. Shipman, Cimage NovaSoft, Irvine, California

Introduction | What is an EDMS? | Plant Specification, Design, Construction Document Creation Process | When Construction Begins| Can E-mail Substitute For An EDMS? | Compliance With regulations | Litigation Support 

Introduction

The scene at the construction site of a new HPI plant is quite impressive. Many interesting processes are taking place: large machines moving dirt and digging into the earth, steel girders being hoisted upwards, concrete being poured, and piping being put into place. The facility starts to take shape.

If you. look beyond these obvious signs of construction, you will see a curious thing. Most of the people are engaged in another activity, the reviewing of drawings and documents. While the construction crews are very skilled at their craft, they know nothing of the process that will eventually take place in the plant they are so actively constructing. The knowledge of what to build and how to build it comes from an entirely different group. That knowledge is contained in the form of drawings and documents.

The systematic management of these drawings and documents can have a dramatic effect on design, construction and operation of the new plant. Failure to properly manage those critical documents can result in delays in construction, rework to correct errors and problems in obtaining permits for plant startup. Many companies are employing electronic document management systems EDMS) to organize this critical set of information.

What is an EDMS?

An EDMS is a computer-based system that controls the: creation/capture and storage of documents; distribution of those documents; user-access to the documents; and process for document updating. This includes control over document check-out, check-in and revisions.

A variety of documentation is needed to build a process plant. These include;

• Piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs)

• Facilities drawings Plot plans

• Engineering drawings

• As-built drawings (marked up as-designed drawings) Electrical diagrams

• Material safety data sheets (MSDS) Correspondence Purchase orders

• Design and construction codes Standards employed Building permits Inspection reports

A typical system contains a document repository for the physical storage of the documents or pointers on where to find hard copies of documents not stored electronically. The system also operates on a database that contains relevant information about the documentation being managed. This data (often referred to as metadata) will be important for finding required documents and for tracking the relationships between documents.

The system also contains the documentation's evolution history. This includes information about each document and its status. The data answers questions such as:

• Who created the document?

• What is the current revision level?

• Is the document currently checked out for modification?

• Which subsystems and assemblies are effected by the document?

• Who must approve any changes to this document?

The history of all changes to the document are available, including who changed the document at which time and for what reason. Also noted are the people who reviewed and approved each change. Documents can be retrieved by users connected on a network with Windows-based PCs, or by users on an intranet using browser technology. Depending on their role, users can "check-out" documents, perform markups and check documents (new or newly modified) into the system.

The EDMS can also be the basis for the "Management of Change" (MOC) process. Before a document can be modified, it must be approved by the cognizant engineers and designers. This requires a folder of documents to describe the proposed changes that must be assembled and routed for approvals. This process must also be documented so that future audits can verify that the appropriate steps were followed and the necessary approvals were given.

Plant specification, design, construction

The early phases of plant evolution are typically characterized by coordination of activities by a diverse group of individuals, often geographically dispersed. These include personnel from the parent company together with architecture, engineering and construction contractors and their subcontractors. The work of the various design specialists must be coordinated as the design evolves.

Document creation process

Once the subcontractors are selected, the design process proceeds as a parallel effort among many diverse groups. Design intelligence is captured in the form of drawings and other documentation. Often a single document will be used, and possibly modified, by several design teams.

This can become a very chaotic process if not properly controlled. Any change that affects other groups must be communicated to them. Even more difficult to control are those situations where multiple people are modifying the same documents. Often, many of the changes to the documentation are in conflict with changes made by other designers. The solution to this problem is to have a system in place that "knows" what the current approved document is, and allows authorized users to check out a document for review and possible update. The document normally can only be checked out to one person. This helps avoid the problem of conflicting changes being made to the same document.

When a checked-out document has been modified and checked back in (as the next revision level), notifying the other design team members that a change has been made is important, as it may affect the work that they are doing.

When construction begins

With all the design documentation in-place, the construction phase can begin. Once into the construction phase, the plant design moves from paper (or electronic) representation into the physical manifestation of the plant.

The as-designed documentation that has been captured is just the starting point for the construction phase. Even with today's sophisticated 3-D design tools, serious and subtle problems with the design quickly become apparent. The process of trying to build the actual plant uncovers problems that the designer did not originally anticipate.

The process to fix these problems requires people at the construction site to mark-up the problem drawings and documents, send these back to the appropriate engineers, and then wait for the drawings to be modified and sent back to the field. This results in intense communications between the construction site and the engineers. A large number of the original design drawings must be modified so that construction can proceed. EDMSs provide an opportunity to improve these processes.

With paper-based systems, even with overnight mail carriers, this process can be painfully slow. A full crew often has to wait around for instructions before the construction can proceed. With an EDMS, markups can immediately be sent back electronically and drawings can quickly be modified and sent back to the field. The time saved in this process can be directly measured. The benefits are translated into quicker time-to-operations, with fewer man-months lost waiting for the information necessary to proceed.

A system designed specifically for construction applications will allow users to look at document sets and easily view all approved and pending changes. This allows construction managers to best plan upcoming work.

Proper management of the documents as they are revised directly affects the quality of the finished facility. By the time the facility is put into production, many of the as-designed documents have been modified (some many times over). This results in a set of as-built documents that will be used by the personnel who will operate the finished facility. Often these as-built documents must be submitted before permits to start plant operation can be obtained.

Can e-mail substitute for an EDMS?

Today, virtually everyone has access to e-mail. Some people are attempting to use their e-mail systems to communicate design changes. Some believe that this e-mail traffic can substitute for a proper EDMS. The ease of e-mail makes this a tempting proposition; however, communication is only one part of the problem. Communication without the proper controls can actually make problems worse.

It certainly seems like a good thing for an engineer working on a drawing change to attach the marked-up drawing in an e-mail to another team member so that he or she can use the new information, or comment on the proposed changes.

The problem is that, with dozens of engineers working on thousands of drawings, there is no guarantee in this scenario that the drawing being sent is the latest approved version. There is no assurance that someone else hasn't already modified the same drawing. Also, there is no guarantee that the person sending the drawing is distributing it to all the people (or the most relevant people) that need to know about the proposed changes.

To overcome this problem, the EDMS allows users to attach pointers to document- stored in the system, in the e-mail messages, instead of attaching the actual documents. This allows recipients to get the documents from the system, thus ensuring that they are using only the latest approved version.

Also, lists of reviewers can be contained in the EDMS so that, depending on which parts of the plant are affected by a particular change, all appropriate engineers can be notified about the change, and allowed to comment before the change is implemented.

When plant operation begins

By implementing an EDMS, the documentation is managed and updated as the design and construction project proceeds. Thus, the evolution of the documentation from as-designed to as-built is captured as it develops.

The result is that at the end of the construction phase the critical plant documentation is in-place and ready for the operators to use. (See Box, "EDMS at Amoco.")

Before the plant is actually brought online, the operations personnel can use the EDMS as the basis for developing the other documentation needed to operate the plant. This includes creating: Plant operating procedures Maintenance procedures Emergency action plans Training materials ISO 9000 documentation Testing and certification procedures.

Compliance with regulations

Government-imposed health, safety and environmental regulations continue to add complexity to construction and operation of new plants. State and local governments impose regulations aimed at controlling and monitoring the environmental impact of the new facilities.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has imposed regulations (OSHA 1910.119) that address the process safety management (PSM) issue. These regulations require extensive hazards analysis and documentation as well as formal MOC requirements for all changes that affect the plant's physical configuration.

By starting with the plant documentation in an EDMS, compliance with these regulations is made substantially easier for plant operators. In fact, this information may be required to obtain the necessary operating permits.

Litigation support

While everyone goes into a new project assuming that all will go well, the reality is that often problems occur during plant design and construction. These dilemmas can include unexpected problems at the site, design changes, change's in project scope, problems in obtaining permits, etc. Typically, these difficulties result in cost overruns and delays in plant operations.

Disputes about who must pay for the delays and overruns are not uncommon. Often a court or an arbitrator makes the decision as to who is liable for the unexpected expenses.

By using an EDMS to manage all documentation, including design changes, there is a well-documented audit trail describing the evolving plant design. Thus, it can easily be determined what changes were initiated by whom and for what reason. This can be very valuable in any disputes occurring after construction is complete.

The author

David C. Shipman

David C. Shipman has been involved with electronic document management systems since 1986.  Prior to joining Cimage, he was marketing manager for manufacturing applications at FileNet, and vice president of engineering at Alpharel (now Altris). He has been in the computer systems business since 1973. Dr. Shipman has a BA in mathematics from the University of Oregon (1968) and a PhD in mathematics from the University of Southern California (1973). He is an active member of the Nuclear Information Records Management Association (NIRMA) and is on the Executive Committee of the Engineering and Manufacturing Member Council of the Association of Information & image Management (AIIM).