*CEL International is now WSP CEL

Transcription

1 * *CEL International is now WSP CEL

2 For over 40 years, companies in the pharmaceutical and process industry have found in CEL an invaluable process plant contractor and engineering partner with an impressive range of highly specialised skills. The company s strengths lie in its flexibility, its comprehensive service offering, and a thorough understanding of the specific challenges its customers face in their market sectors. CEL s experts are involved in all stages of process plant projects, from risk analysis and environmental audits in the preinvestment phase; design, procurement, project management and construction in the investment stage; to cost of goods analysis and the removal of bottlenecks in a plant s operational life. An award-winning company proud of the value and peace of mind it delivers to customers, CEL s story is one of resilience, determination, adaptation and diversification, which found in MPDS4 an extremely reliable and flexible plant design and automation solution, equal to the diverse and growing demands of its client base. Nigel Barnes, CEL International s Managing Director About CEL Headquartered in Coventry, the UK s manufacturing heartland, CEL International has offices throughout the United Kingdom, in Ireland, China, and many other international locations. CEL provides consultancy, design, engineering, procurement, construction/project management and validation services to customers in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, food & consumer products, industrial & chemical, and energy & environment market sectors. This typical MPDS4 model designed by CEL shows a module within a pharmaceutical pilot plant. CEL s customer list reads like a Who s Who in the pharma and process industry, from famous high street names and food brands to energy and pharmaceutical giants. But Managing Director Nigel Barnes, himself a highly-experienced engineering project manager and former Vice President of Engineering at GlaxoSmithKline, emphasises that the company supports clients of all sizes, from small consultancy projects to full Engineering Procurement Construction Management (EPCM) delivery. Our services are very flexible, delivered in the way clients need them, he explains. Assignments range from a few thousand pounds-worth of advice or smaller plant modification projects to comprehensive capital plant contracts in excess of 50M capital value. Fast, Reliable Plant Design That Wins Projects An innovator always keen to deploy the best technology for the job, CEL has been using 3D plant design systems for detailed process plant design and layout for many years. MPDS4 is the company s system of choice, not only among the users. In a recent open vote among CEL project managers, 10 out of 11 said they preferred to tackle all of their plant design projects with MPDS4, seeing it as the most reliable system, and one that impresses clients and helps to win contracts. CEL deploys MPDS4 ADVANCED with supporting modules in all the plant design disciplines, including Steel Design, Process Piping Design with ISOGEN, Electrical Design, Ducting Design, Hangers & Supports, P&ID, Factory Layout, Mechanical Handling and Engineering Review. The seats also include the MEDUSA4 ADVANCED drafting system with Parametrics and the MEDUSA4 3D modeller. Efficient Multi-User Plant Design CEL s design team of 82 is regularly augmented with contract designers, providing the flexibility to deal with peaks in demand and critical project phases. Dave Latchem, CEL s CAD Administrator, says, On larger plant design projects, there are typically designers using the software simultaneously, out of a project design team of people. Brendan Lewis, Lead Designer and one of the system s expert users, says, people working on a model simultaneously might not sound like a lot, but we ve seen what some of our large oil company clients get from other contractors, and what they get from us they have 10 designers, and we have 1 guy doing the same job in MPDS. The effluent sumps, pumps and other services being constructed on the outside of a large biotech complex designed by CEL with MPDS4 CAD Schroer GmbH Page 2 of 5

3 materials, including, for example, special glass-lined, PTFE-lined and rubber-lined pipes. From left: CEL s Brendan Lewis, Jamie Gower and Dave Latchem in front of an MPDS4 3D isometric view of a secondary biotech plant When we take over from other contractors, these people are often cheaper by the hour, but because MPDS lets us work that much faster and more accurately at the same time, we put in estimates that are cheaper overall, says Senior Mechanical Designer, Jamie Gower. And then we often do a job in less time than estimated. We often go up against socalled expert contractors with better systems - still we get selected. Quickly Getting Contractors Up to Speed Contractors are expected to get up to speed with MPDS4 in about a week, after a day s in-house training and some hand-holding. That s another plus about MPDS, says Brendan. It s easy to learn. I think it s one of the easiest packages to teach somebody. Customised for Bespoke Design CEL s expertise in specific industry sectors brings with it a huge catalog, and the company has over 300 of its own drawing routines. MPDS4 is very flexible and customisable, says Dave. We ve automated our design processes extensively, with catalogdriven parametric drawing routines for things like creating the 3-way valves and tri-clamp fittings common in pharmaceutical plants. CEL probably has one of the largest custom catalogs in the industry, with well over 50,000 individual components from over 30,000 unique geometry records and around 200 Applied Market Knowledge Every year CEL s engineers work on projects with a capital value of about 250m, bringing detailed knowledge and extensive experience of the market sector to each project. A large capital project may take from 20 to 60 man years to complete, explains Nigel Barnes. MPDS4 for Pharmaceutical Process Facility Design As part of its extensive pharma portfolio, CEL recently designed and project managed the construction of a state-of-the-art vaccines production facility for a major pharmaceutical client. The approximately 15,000 m 2 building consisted of two floors with laboratories, production and processing areas and harvest lines, and 4 additional floors to accommodate the building s services. The design included miles of cable trays and pipework, with over 6,000 individual pipes. Tray handling conveyors being built for a harvesting line in a major pharmaceutical plant designed by CEL with MPDS4 CEL s mechanical designers used MPDS4 for the entire plant, modelling everything from HVAC and piping to cable trays and even the preassembled skids that were delivered to the site. The design team consisted of about 60 people, with 12 people working concurrently on MPDS4. CEL provided piping specialists with fully dimensioned MPDS4 pipe isometrics for all of the 6,000 individual pipes in this pharma plant. The pipe fitters used printed 3D views of the equipment to complete the installation. Dave Latchem says, This project really showed up MPDS competition. This was a much bigger project than one being done at the same time by one of our neighbouring companies, which was working with another wellknown plant design software. Their Project Manager was horrified; he was struggling to get things out. And our guys here were just churning things out. CEL also discovered a time and costsaving method of communicating with the piping specialists on site. We had MPDS on a computer on-site and taught the piping contractors how to bring up the bit of the model that they were interested in, spin it around and print out 3D views, explains Jamie, There were colour views of the model stuck to each tank, and of course we had provided the isometrics. They could walk into the building, look at the model, and work to that. We saved tons of hours by not having to produce any piping drawings. CAD Schroer GmbH Page 3 of 5

4 Jamie Gower working on an MPDS4 model of an oil company s well site a photograph of the site can be seen in the background. A View of the Entire Plant Unlike other plant design systems, MPDS allows our users to see the entire plant while they are working in their discipline, and any number of users can work on the same model, says Dave Latchem. In one of the other major plant design systems which we were required by a client to use, you have to break up the plant beforehand and only work within a designated area. It s horrific trying to divide the job up. And if it gets too complicated, that system just falls over. With MPDS you simply don t have that problem. I ve done the maths, says Brendan, and I believe that four experienced design engineers working in MPDS would be the equivalent of 24 designers using the system Dave is describing, because of its limitations on concurrent working. Winning Contracts with MPDS4: On-Site 3D Design Studies One of benefits of MPDS4 s relational database approach, and the speed with which 3D layouts can be achieved, is its usefulness in a presales or tender scenario. CEL runs the software on a normal laptop when visiting a customer site. We often choose to work in MPDS 3D even when the deliverables are in 2D, because it s faster and gets us much further along, says Dave Latchem. Hydrocarbon Installation Simplification Dave cites the example of one of the major oil companies, which commissioned CEL to do a design study for a project tender. Jamie Gower, who went to the site, explains, The job was a simplification project requiring the identification of redundant equipment, so it could be disconnected from the process. All they expected was for us to measure up the site and deliver 2D drawings and a parts list. Instead, Jamie decided it would be quicker and easier to model the installation in MPDS4, based on existing isos, then automatically produce the required 2D drawings. He did the work in less time than the estimate for doing it in 2D. I had the client looking over my shoulder, saying, Can we move this can we change that..? They were very impressed that we delivered a 3D model, and liked MPDS flexibility. With that much work already done, we saved an immense amount of time. In the end, the company awarded us the simplification contract straightaway. Easy to Handle Large, Complex Models We have licenses for - and direct experience of - most of the leading plant design systems, says Brendan. That s because sometimes customers require us to use specific software. One of the many things MPDS has going for it is that it can handle huge, complex plants with ease, and you can run it on a regular laptop. One of our customers who tried to achieve similar results with a well-known 3D system had to pay about 20 times the price of a normal PC to get a machine powerful enough to display his models. Dave Latchem showing an MPDS4 model of a glass plant MPDS4 for Construction Project Coordination CEL recently worked on a new bio fuel plant (a joint project between a major US chemical and UK Oil Company) for which WSP Group (one of the world s fastest growing engineering consultancies, to which CEL now belongs) was the building design and construction contractor. The project involved four different contractors. First we modelled the building, the slab and the area around it from 2D drawings, explains Brendan. MPDS4 s FACTORY LAYOUT module allows designers to quickly produce 3D building models based on 2D layouts. Then we used the model to coordinate all the other disciplines, such as the steelwork and the process, which two other contractors were involved with. We ran clash detection and routed all the services, including the electrical cabling and all the interconnected pipework to tie in the process components (which were slotted into modular frames) inside and outside the building. It was a bit of an unusual way of working, but MPDS is the system that did it. MPDS4 for Manufacturing Plants CEL also recently worked on a major glass production plant. When we bid for the job, we were competing against their system of choice, and were grilled extensively during a live demo, says Dave. When it came to the point where isometrics had to be CAD Schroer GmbH Page 4 of 5

5 produced, the client's software hit its limits. Dave and Brendan demonstrated how easily piping isometrics could be created with MPDS4. The client then wanted to see his 3D plant models imported into MPDS4 and isometrics automatically produced. Integrating External 3D Model Files They wanted it done right then and there, says Brendan. So we sent them off to lunch and we did it, bringing the models in as STEP files. You can also open a DWG, trace over it, and create your model from there. As a result, the client decided to go with MPDS. We regularly incorporated the customer s STEP files into the plant the latest version of MPDS4 allowed us to reduce the file size significantly. Clash Detection The customer soon realised that CEL had saved significant time and money by using MPDS4. We ran clash detection to find issues in the design very early on, which he couldn t see in his drawings, says Brendan, Changes are easily made while you re still in the office, but mistakes caught later on become very costly. Pipes were fabricated off-site, so they have to be remade if they don t fit. If the guys are meanwhile hanging around the site, it gets more and more expensive. Automatic Piping Isometrics The automatic production of pipe isometrics from the models is one of the key benefits of MPDS, says Dave Latchem. You just press a button and you re away. You even get a 3D view of the pipe next to the dimensioned isometrics, a special development originally done for us, which became part of the standard product. Many of CEL s customers try to build large assemblies with their 3D CAD systems. On top of performance and MPDS model of a spinning line in a process plant designed by CEL, with integrated Pro/ENGINEER machinery models file size issues when assembling a large number of components, these systems don t deliver fully dimensioned pipe isometrics, Dave explains, and Jamie adds, Keep in mind that it takes about 4 ½ hours per iso if you have to draw it in 2D. The number that MPDS can push out per day is only limited by the speed of our printer. And when there s a change in the model, the isos update automatically. Many projects CEL works on rely on absolutely accurate isometrics, because all the pipes have to be manufactured off-site, local welding being prohibited. I remember one project with a big stainless steel line; very expensive and they were very nervous about it, and insisted on not having field fit welds, because they were not allowed to weld on site, Jamie recalls, It s quite expensive for them to send stuff away, get it tweaked and brought back. They built the line to iso and it went straight in, on a Saturday; 40 metres of stainless steel pipework connecting an existing vessel and two different pumps. They were so impressed; the piping contractor approached me and commented on how good the drawings were. Always Someone at the End of the Line CEL and CAD Schroer have enjoyed a long-standing partnership. One of the key benefits of using MPDS is the relationship we enjoy with CAD Schroer, says Dave. There is always someone at the end of the line or willing to come see us; if we need support we don t end up in endless queuing systems. We work to tight deadlines, so a quick response from the software vendor is important. People like Mark Simpson (CAD Schroer s UK-based Product Line Manager) know a lot about engineering they understand what we do on a daily basis and try to help us do it better and quicker. And we help them to enhance the product with the feedback we give. CAD Schroer s work ethic is similar to ours if we say we will deliver, we will deliver; and we usually beat the customer s expectations. From Left: Dave Latchem, Mark Simpson and Jamie Gower looking at piping arrangement drawings of an oil installation produced with MPDS4 We Never Stop Learning The most interesting part of my job is to see what our customers deliver with the help of our software, says Mark Simpson, The quality of the services CEL provides to its large and satisfied customer base are the best testament to the value of our solutions. Like CEL, our aim is to provide products and services flexible enough to adapt to the needs of our customer base, and we never stop learning from our clients. Technical modifications reserved. CAD Schroer GmbH All rights reserved. All brands or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. 04/2009 CAD Schroer GmbH Page 5 of 5