P&ID Standards and Procedures

[FabriCADed]

I'm looking for people experienced with P&ID's to input their previous or current experience with P&IDs and the standards and procedures used. Looking for site, client and corporate standards. Our current firm of 8000+ employees has no current standards. We use ISA 5.1 symbols, but as far as P&ID flow from sheet to sheet, where the P&ID's are drawn, how scope is demarcated and shown and multiple other issues we have nothing. We are running into issues with multiple projects using the same P&ID and want to find a way to solve this that allows multiple projects within the same building to share P&IDs. We use vanilla AutoCAD since management has written off AutoCAD P&ID until someone can convince them to use it again.

We are trying to make some standards and I'm on a think tank that is formulating the standards and procedures just for P&IDs. The disciplines involved are Process Chemical, Mechanical and Instrumentation/Controls. Any help or input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks ahead of time.

[dgorsman]

I've used a number of P&ID packages, they usually fall over in the real world for a number of reasons (like trying to work with drawings done in another software). In most cases it becomes a smart drawing, not an intelligent one but not dumb either.

OPCs are some of the easiest to set up. Multiple rows of descriptors (top *and* bottom) to handle a variety of client requirements. Enough room to handle very long drawing numbers. I push zero-thickness polylines where possible so plotting is controlled by the style rather than a per-object setting (why, when there are so many better options...). I borrow heavily from some of the common intelligent concepts, like a universal connector index value so drawings can be cross-checked via ObjectDBX.

[jaberwok]

I've created many P&IDs over the years but there has never been any (software) intelligence involved. Just lines and symbol libraries. I suspect that your projects are much larger too - mine generally related to relatively small process plant.

[FabriCADed]

I've used a number of P&ID packages, they usually fall over in the real world for a number of reasons (like trying to work with drawings done in another software). In most cases it becomes a smart drawing, not an intelligent one but not dumb either.

OPCs are some of the easiest to set up. Multiple rows of descriptors (top *and* bottom) to handle a variety of client requirements. Enough room to handle very long drawing numbers. I push zero-thickness polylines where possible so plotting is controlled by the style rather than a per-object setting (why, when there are so many better options...). I borrow heavily from some of the common intelligent concepts, like a universal connector index value so drawings can be cross-checked via ObjectDBX.

I've been trying to push for smarter P&IDs, but for now the management is stuck on just using them as dumb as they can be. With that said, I try to incorporate as many "smarter" elements as I can, dynamic blocks and good layer management is about all I can get away with (sometimes I'm thwarted by my own management or by CAD management). What I am looking for is how people handle large projects that deal with hundreds of P&IDs (but I won't turn down any help that I get).

[reikajapan]

You say that in the same office you use the same P&ID on multiple projects? I can't imagine how that would work unless you are building identical fabs for various locations. Even then I don't see that working too well.

You say you don't have standards but the people there must have their own standard for doing their drawings, usually learned from other firms and brought with them. Pick out the ones you like and use that as a starting point.

[FabriCADed]

You say that in the same office you use the same P&ID on multiple projects? I can't imagine how that would work unless you are building identical fabs for various locations. Even then I don't see that working too well.

You say you don't have standards but the people there must have their own standard for doing their drawings, usually learned from other firms and brought with them. Pick out the ones you like and use that as a starting point.

We use the same P&IDs for multiple phases of the same Fabs. For instance Basebuild and Specialty Gases, considered 2 different projects, but same building. It doesn't work very well, that's why I'm on here asking for help.

As far as standards are concerned, yes we have multiple people here that have done their own work/worked for other firms, but most of them (other than our team) haven't worked on large scale P&IDs before. Within our team we have a few that haven't even worked on P&IDs before. Most of those that have worked in Instrumentation or Controls before are engineers, not CAD users. Again, that's why I came on here asking for others help and experiences.