The difficulty of cross-departmental collaboration and information synchronization, I believe that many people have felt, and the big factories have derived the Internet “black talk” of “pulling through” and “alignment”, using simple words to express complex things.

If there is any industry that suffers the most from alignment, engineering must be on the list!

Engineering design usually involves more than 10 design majors such as process, equipment, civil construction, pipeline, electrical, instrumentation, etc. The massive design information generated by cross-specialty and multi-system often leads to problems such as difficult data retrieval, unclear flow direction, poor sharing, and wrong transmission, which makes designers have to deal with a lot of repetitive labor and cumbersome format management, thus affecting design efficiency and quality.

In recent years, under the joint exploration of Siemens and Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Co., LTD. (Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Co., LTD.), the process industry engineering design is finally no longer trapped in this, and turns to a fast, lean and economical digital collaboration road.

Sinopec Shanghai Engineering is one of China’s earliest large-scale integrated engineering companies engaged in petrochemical, pharmaceutical and chemical engineering design and general engineering contracting. Since its establishment in 1953, Sinopec Shanghai Engineering has completed more than 8,500 domestic and foreign engineering projects. Sinopec Shanghai Project is also the creator of many “China’s first”, from the first penicillin production line in New China, the first vitamin C production workshop to the design of the first petrochemical introduction device, and then to the first refining and chemical integration and coal integration base… Behind these brilliant are inseparable from this “national engineering enterprise” figure.

Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Co. LTD

In recent years, rounds of industrial changes have advanced by leaps and bounds, and market competition at home and abroad has become increasingly fierce. Determined to become the “head goose” of the world engineering company, Sinopec Shanghai Engineering has turned its attention to digital collaborative innovation, hoping to solve the problem of data and resource sharing under the traditional design mode, so as to achieve improved quality, reduced cost and increased efficiency. Siemens’ COMOS platform integrated software solution for the process industry has thus entered the vision of Sinopec Shanghai Engineering.

Integrated software solution for Siemens COMOS platform

“The realization of digital collaborative design is the first and key step for Sinopec Shanghai Engineering to become a ‘cloud engineering company’.” Wu Xi, deputy manager of Sinopec Process Room, said, “As early as 2015, we set up a joint development team with Siemens to jointly create an integrated, open integrated engineering design platform in the form of demand co-creation. Since the platform was officially launched two years ago, more than 60 integrated projects have been engineered, which has greatly improved design efficiency and quality.”

Taking the process room where Wu Xi is located as an example, under the premise of the same number of personnel, the number of projects that the department is responsible for has increased by about 60%. “The new platform not only allows everyone to fully experience the benefits of digital collaboration, but also allows the industry to see a practical and high-quality development path.” “He added.

“Data should bring value, not shackles.” Wang Jian, senior engineer of Sinopec Shanghai Engineering, said, “In order to break the data silos under the traditional engineering design system, our joint development team carried out several iterations of demand analysis, model building and user test feedback, and finally customized the digital collaborative design platform based on the Siemens COMOS platform solution. The original dozens of non-circulating data flows, business flows and workflows within Sinopec Shanghai Project have realized the ‘multi-flow integration’ and transformed the blockage into a thin one.”

Perfect data management system, open data standards and technologies, and reliable data quality are the prerequisites for “turning blockage into thinning”. Unlike most industrial software, the COMOS platform is unique in that it can integrate data from different sources into a single database with local development, centralized management and maintenance, and avoid data silos from the source.

In addition, the COMOS platform’s comprehensive review mechanism can effectively reduce data errors, and Siemens engineers customize expert rules based on the experience and needs of Sinopec Shanghai project to set the scope of data. When the platform finds errors or non-standard data, it will immediately send a reminder, reducing unnecessary calibration time and protecting data quality.

 

Perfect data management system effectively improves data quality

Data coordination to crack the three major difficulties

The COMOS platform, which has been iterated and optimized, is now the central design data asset portal for Sinopec’s Shanghai project. As the first large-scale application of COMOS platform in the field of process industry engineering design in China, it solves the “three major difficulties” that have plagued the company and the industry for a long time through data collaboration.

First, knowledge sharing is difficult.

Design data assets are the crystallization of the wisdom of engineering design enterprises. Due to the lack of efficient data management means in traditional mode, these valuable assets are often difficult to precipitate, share and inherit. The integrated data management function of the COMOS platform is equivalent to building a proprietary technical model library, and users can query and access any technical information they need at any time and anywhere by simply entering key information.

Secondly, inter-professional collaboration is difficult.

For a long time, due to the lack of collaborative environment, professional engineers have to spend a lot of time and energy to deal with the tedious work flow. Taking process design verification as an example, process engineers used to have to go around looking for people with documents, get comments and then return to modify and resubmit. It usually takes 2 to 3 days to complete an audit without considering the business trip of the relevant auditor. The current digital collaborative process is no longer restricted by location, the process engineer only needs to initiate the process online, the system will automatically follow up, and the completed documents can be submitted to the downstream professional within 1 day. Downstream meters, piping and static equipment and other related professional after receiving the conditions can be specific design.

The parallel and collaborative advantages of COMOS platform also made Wu Xi, deputy manager, feel deeply. “We can modify different parts of the project at the same time, but the final document is unified, which saves the time of transferring a lot of data and conditions in the past.”

Third, design reuse is difficult.

The drawings designed by the design institute are different each time, but the basic design elements are always the same. However, even if similar projects have strong reference, design reuse also requires data input and verification, which is not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also often unsatisfactory. The partners of the design institute shook their heads and sighed, “Here we go again…” Besides, nothing can be done. Today, all this is once, the emergence of the COMOS platform makes design reuse as easy as “where not to click”, designers only need to copy the target project, and then combined with the actual data of the new project, can achieve twice the effect.

The COMOS platform is powerful and does more with less

Since the COMOS platform was launched, Sinopec Shanghai Project has reduced the design cycle by 40% to 60% for seven styrene projects of various sizes through design reuse. In the increasingly fierce competition, strengthening project reuse is of great significance for engineering design enterprises to shorten the construction period, improve the design quality and reduce the project cost, and is an important factor to enhance the comprehensive competitiveness.

The infinite possibilities of COMOS platform

COMOS platform solutions combine Siemens’ technical expertise and experience across a wide range of industries, from engineering to operations to upgrades and decommissioning, to help companies create value throughout their entire life cycle.

To fully realize the potential of the COMOS platform beyond engineering, Siemens and Sinopec Shanghai Engineering are looking to the value chain for the owner side. In the future, the two sides will jointly explore how to provide owners with digital delivery, remote monitoring, optimization simulation and other services based on the COMOS platform, so as to solve the worries of factory operation and maintenance management and escort the landing of digital projects.

It is worth mentioning that the subscription model of the COMOS platform also gives more possibilities to the majority of users such as Sinopec Shanghai Engineering. Under this model, users do not need to invest a large amount of money to purchase a permanent license for the software, and only need to pay regularly to continue to receive high-quality services from Siemens during the subscription period. In addition, users can flexibly adjust the size of the subscription agreement or increase or decrease the subscription function according to their own business development and needs.