The design & Construction of a new process plant as an engineering project includes huge activities and required documentation in different technical and commercial departments.
One of the important technical disciplines which have vital roles & responsibilities during the whole lifecycle of a process project is “Instrumentation & Control” (or I&C).
Instrumentation Design
Success in doing the right or good activities and producing proper required documentation for a project and implementing the suitable instrumentation & control systems can cause good reliability and proper effects on the safety and performance of the plant further to guarantee stable continuous production with high efficiency.
I&C specialists are engaged in all steps of Design, Construction, Commissioning & Start-up, and Operation & Maintenance of the process plant to do some activities and prepare documentation by themselves or via links (or communications) to other responsible disciplines, teams, or departments to get some data or information or to help/do their jobs or producing their documents.
I&C Engineer Roles & Responsibilities
The scope of work and producing documents for I&C teams in different industrial projects depends on the type and size of the project and the degree of required automation for that project.
However, in normal industrial projects, especially in the process plants (including Chemical, Oil& Gas, Petrochemical, …) the roles and responsibilities of I&C teams are more essential due to existing risks and complexities and the need to control such items.
Of course, in critical projects like nuclear or aircraft production/industry or space technologies the roles & responsibilities of I&C teams are still very critical, and they shall follow very hard and strict standards and requirements which are more complicated than normal projects.
The required skills and abilities of I&C teams in different phases of one normal project (including Design, Implementation & Engineering, Instruments & Systems and Equipment/Package Production/ Test, Construction & Commissioning, and Plant Operation & Maintenance) are varying in types and levels of knowledge, experience, and project overview and specially depends on the position of I&C engineer in doing such phases (Designer, Client, End-user, Consultant, Manufacturer Specialist, Inspector, Site Constructor, …).
Perhaps can say the most level of skills and abilities are required for I&C teams in doing the Design & Engineering phase of one industrial project, since at this stage they need a general overview of knowledge & experience (practice) for the relations of required documents and activities further to detail of some special subjects to be implemented by them.
On the other hand, they need at least a lot of theoretical knowledge plus good experimental practices further to familiarize themselves with proceeding one normal industrial project routines and working with some general-purpose software (including MS Office, document & picture producing & editing, graphics & drawings, …), further to familiarity with available technologies (advantages & weak points) and applicable standards.
Generally, one may say that the Instrumentation & Control team’s roles and responsibilities in other steps of doing one normal project are part of those ones in doing the Design & Engineering phase of that project with common parts on some of them and slightly more details on some of the others.
I&C Engineer’s Roles in Plant Design
Here is a simplified list of I&C Engineer’s roles in plant design:
- Feasibility studies for proposed systems.
- Designing control systems.
- Developing and interpreting specifications.
- Sizing and selecting instruments.
- Developing process and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs).
- Evaluating safety system design.
- Conducting hazard and operability studies (HAZOP).
- Verifying and validating designs.
- Collaborating with multi-disciplinary teams.
- Documenting all design processes.
- Supervising installation.
- Testing system performance.
- Commissioning and decommissioning of instruments.
- Ensuring compliance with safety and environmental regulations.
- Overseeing project management aspects.
So, let us have a review of I&C’s roles and responsibilities in doing such a step of the normal project.
Process Plant Project (in the Detail Design phase)
Although different companies have their own arrangement or role definitions of different technical and non-technical teams or departments to do the required activities and documents of normal process plant projects, and they may have their own procedures and software, and facilities, they shall follow generally the below sequence:
- Getting the project requirements and analysis of them
- Preparing the relevant specifications (and plans)
- Doing the detailed study and calculations of the detailed design
- Preparing the material and purchase requisitions
- Procurement and coordination with vendors for manufacturing
- Test and check the validity of supplied items
- Site assistance for construction, installation & commissioning, and start-up of the plant.
Of course, you may see different definitions for steps and subsequences of required jobs and activities in different articles but may say that the above-mentioned sequence generally covers more of them.
Figure 1 shows the “Activity Model of I&C Roles + Documentation” in doing the “Detail Engineering Phase” of a normal process plant project based on above mentioned sequence.
Figure-1 : Activity Model of I&C Roles + Documentation (in Detail Engineering Company)
This diagram was prepared based on PIDEC (which is a Detail Design Engineering Company in the field of Process Plants) activity and responsibility definitions for the I&C department.
As before said in different other companies you may find some differences in such definitions, and you may see that some of the activities or documents mentioned in this diagram are done by other disciplines (Electrical, HSE, ICT, …) or on the other hand some documents which are not seen in this diagram will be followed by I&C team.
Nevertheless, this diagram is an actual example that helps us to be more familiar with the basis of I&C activities and documents of the I&C team and the sequences which shall be followed for producing such items.
Furthermore, it can help us for understanding the priority and importance of the right planning for doing the jobs and producing relevant documents. In fact, it is the art of company organization to provide the best project planning in such a way that the right time of doing each one and a synchronized target planning with project progress can be realized, and also enough manpower (and required competency) to be assigned.
Please notice that this diagram is provided as a simplified model and so some activity/ documentation interconnection and services to other company technical disciplines may not show here.
However, generally can say that I&C specialists in the detail design phase are responsible for three main documents:
- The documents are produced by themselves.
- The documents are produced by others and monitored by them.
- The documents produced by their mutual cooperation of them (and include required data via I&C study).
Further to these three types of documents, some data or documents are to be supplied by others as inputs to I&C activities which are defined in different formats (shown and defined on legends).
General Approaches to I&C Activities and Documents
By referring to Figure-1 a great explanation can be described for all shown blocks and interconnection paths and progress of sequences, but generally, we can find some main approaches for doing the I&C activities and producing relevant documents as follow:
- Analysis of the project requirements for preparing their planning and providing help and services to other disciplines for doing their planning (for their activities and documents).
- Preparing the project specifications/ Datasheets based on found requirements and other regular considerations including safety items main. In fact, serious considerations for plant (process) safety and protection by participating in relevant activities and coordination meetings (/studies) and implementing relevant results for I&C activities and documents to be done.
- Preparing the plant I&C project database for proceeding to the Detail Engineering phase and other following stages.
- Preparing the all required and suitable instrumentation for the plant project and delivering such items to the project site at the proper time.
- Design & Preparing all required and suitable systems (and sub-systems) and control loops and interlocks of plant project and deliver such items to the project site at the proper time.
- Preparing the documents for layouts & installation drawings of instruments, systems, and relevant cabling and tubing for use at the Construction & Installation phase ( and followed phases).
- Preparing the required materials for all accessories and installation items (including cables, ladders & trays, tubes, supports, …) and delivering such items to the project site at the proper time.
- Preparing the required supply utilities for I&C items.
- Assistance services to other disciplines for their activities and especially for preparing and procurement of Equipment/ Packages with their suitable systems and instrumentations in considered plant harmony and interfaces.
- Take care regarding all required interfaces between systems and sub-systems based on plant control philosophy.
Again, should be mentioned that a lot of detailed approaches and processes can be explained for shown I&C activity model, but we try to mention the main items here and explain some of them in slightly more detail.
Read the next articles to learn more about the instrumentation detail design works.
Instrumentation Detail Design Phase: