The INGECAD multidisciplinary integrated computer aided engineering system

Process plant engineering is implied here as the set of technical and economical activities resulting in industrial units capable of producing goods. This implies incorporation of quality assurance, functionability, reliability, and maintainability into the design; as of assurance that performances and economics will be optimized. A coherent body of methods are needed to guide the engineering process. Resulting from recent researches stands a design theory including five major issues: Conceptual design; quantitative methods including numerical analyses, simulations, and optimizations; intelligent systems spanning over heuristics, design synthesis and explicit representation of knowledge; data integration and management; and man-machine interface. Although as with any theory this model can be discussed, it can help in deriving as exhaustively as possible a set of basic criteria for integrated computer aided engineering systems. This paper presents a flow model of plant engineering with the purpose of identifying key criteria for computerizing the engineering process. It introduces the solution developed with the INGECAD system to match these criteria. (orig.)