Get- Going Right Away No special pilot phase has been necessary for the introduction of AVEVA PDMS from the AVEVA Plant portfolio at Outotec. The easy- to- learn 3D plant design solution has given the company a significant increase in productivity in a remarkably short time. Bernhard D. Valnion, Ph. D. digitalPLANT Business + Engineering Outsiders may be confused looking at the chaos of all the pipelines belonging to a process plant, the insider isn't affected at all because he can quickly identify the differences of the various types of plant. While the pipe layout belongs to the central tasks of a construction, the influence in the planning context is quite different. For example the piping layout design is very important in a fertilizer plant, such as the one Uhde is building together with Samsung Engineering in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi in the Arabian Gulf ( 1). By contrast it wasn't that important in the ferrous pelletizing plant in Brazil's Sao Luis, built by Outotec ( 2) in 2006. There the steel structure was the main determining factor in the plant layout. Of course, such differences are important in order to select the correct planning tools: the excessive complexity of Uhde's plant brings the ( 2D) piping and instrumentation diagrams ( P& IDs) into the center of engineering. However, the planning engineers of Outotec do it right from the first getgo. They have decided in favour of PDMS designed and supplied by AVEVA. Within this 3D environment they'll never lose track. So the experts save time and money. The strategic importance of a 3D plant design system has encouraged Outotec to take special care in choosing a new system. We've talked with Manfred Kauer, responsible for the entire IT infrastructure of the German subsidiary Outotec: ' The old system was to be replaced because the increasing complexity in the system planning could no longer be controlled.' A committee of engineering and IT experts generated a set of specifications, which summarized the requirements for the new tool. Page 30| AVEVA PIPELINE | 2010 Issue 2 Peletizing plant in Sao Luis, Brazil, and ferrous pellets. This article was reprinted from the 2/ 2010 issue of digitalPLANT Business + Engineering.

Strong market position Many firms in the plant industry look back at a stormy history. A good example is Outotec GmbH. The subsidiary belongs to Outotec Oyj based in Espoo near Helsinki which by the way is the home of famous Formula 1 star Kimi Räikkönen. Outotec's Oberursel site stemmed from Lurgi Metallurgie which was acquired by the Outokumpu Oyj from Metallgesellschaft AG in 2001. Outokumpu Technology was then organized as a legal consolidated group in 2006. In the same year the company was listed as an independent firm on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Outokumpu Technology changed its name to Outotec in April 2007. The acquisition of Lurgi Metallurgie had a major impact on Outotec's portfolio complementing it with technologies for iron processing, alumina calcining, roasting of sulfidic ores and sulfuric acid production technologies. Based on its historical background, Lurgi Metallurgie has developed a full range of plant engineering and contracting businesses over the course of time. Outotec's second important site in Germany is located in Cologne and has its roots in the former Humbold Klöckner Deutz AG. www. outotec. com Own research and further communication with reference customers helped to provide a general overview of the available tools offered on the market. Kauer comments the approach: ' Although the decision has been prepared by the IT department, the engineers have to make the final selection by themselves.' ' Nobody wants', Kauer continued, ' to force the people to use an IT system they have to work with every day.' The IT department sees itself in an advisory function which operates in the background. Coaching, however, was necessary in any case, because no user could know all the details: ' There are systems that promise a lot but keep little - and there are systems that can be really productive.' Kauer, head of IT, speaks from a well informed position; before he has joined Outotec he was system administrator for PDS and PDMS. On- site Visit Soon AVEVA was in the short- listed group, Outotec took up the vendor's offer to consult with the ThyssenKrupp subsidiary Polysius ( 3), an engineering company for designing cement manufacturing plants. This was very attractive in many respects. On one hand there are remarkable similarities between the two companies concerning the plant design, including the machine equipment, on the other hand the PDMS user Polysius uses Autodesk Inventor - same as Outotec Germany - for the 3D modeling of the device equipment. ' Therefore we are able to benefit efficiently from their experiences,' the mechanical engineer says. Finally, PDMS came off as winner from the benchmark. Kauer mentioned several reasons. PDMS has open interfaces so there will be no difficulties adapting the tool to any new processes. After all, you never know what kind of requirements engineering is going to provide in a few years, he says. It was an important consideration in decision that PDMS is very mature. ' It has been on the market since the late 1970s and its own database and the database structure is constructed in a special way to suit complex process plant modelling; for example, a catalog part is not held more than once, but only references to the original,' Kauer says contentedly. This technique limits the required amount of data significantly while allowing replication at multiple locations in the model. Above: Plant design using AVEVA PDMS. References: ( 1) www. uhde. eu/ press/ index. de. epl ( 2) www. outotec. com ( 3) www. polysius. com AVEVA PIPELINE | 2010 Issue 2 | Page 31 Above: Manfred Kauer, Outotec. ' There are systems that promise a lot but keep little - and there are systems that can be really productive...'