Lenzing JetStream helps out at Lenzing Technik: Site inspection in real time. Metre by metre engineers trace the run of the pipes and check the layouts of the machinery, exposing the smallest of defects and detect trouble-spots. Yet the installation is not even built yet. It only exists as a virtual model, yet thanks to JetStream imaging software the entire plant can be given a tour of inspection just like the real thing.

JetStream helps out at Lenzing Technik: Site inspection in real time

Gerd Bergner's face is set in concentration as he takes a tour around the production plant. Metre by metre he traces the run of the pipes and checks the layout of the machinery, determined to expose the smallest of defects and detect trouble-spots. Yet in spite of all this single-minded application the engineer is feeling quite relaxed - for the installation that he is checking so scrupulously is not even built yet. It only exists as a virtual model, yet thanks to JetStream imaging software the entire plant can be given a tour of inspection just like the real thing.

Gerd Bergner is an engineer at Lenzing Technik GmbH & Co KG, a fully-owned subsidiary of Lenzing AG, the Austrian-based international corporation whose core business is manmade cellulose fibres. The globally-active Lenzing Group made its name as a supplier of viscose, modal and lyocell fibres and is also a major producer of "non wovens", which are used in the manufacture of household cloths and wet-wipes for face and baby care.

As well as marketing its woven and non-woven fibres in every corner of the globe, the company also supplies technological know-how to the fibre and cellulose industry. Engineers at Lenzing Technik GmbH do not just work for the parent company but are also involved in the planning and construction of production plant for clients all over the world. Last year Lenzing Technik GmbH, which has a workforce of 515, generated a turnover of €86 million.

Universal IT Concept

The engineering division of Lenzing Technik, which has a staff of some 150, naturally takes a progressive approach to things. With the help of AXAVIA, a company specializing in data and configuration management, Lenzing has now developed an IT concept that can support every phase of the plant design process. Precise planning means that plant construction costs can be substantially reduced, since about half of the total investment in any production plant is spent during the construction phase. By ironing out the design problems and achieving a high level of planning accuracy the entire project becomes much more cost effective.

For the last two and a half years the company has therefore been working on a universal 3D planning system with AutoCAD applications. This project has focused on AutoCAD software specifically designed for process plant engineering, together with the AutoStructure steelwork package, which also uses AutoCAD. The Autodesk Architectural Desktop system is also deployed in special circumstances when the functions of the steelwork package cannot cope with the structural aspects of the new building. The entire operation is supported by NavisWorks imaging software, which is supplied by the UK-based company of the same name.

Plant Engineering Involves Vast Amounts Of Data

Processing plants designed by Lenzing Technik are extremely complex systems and as many as four million individual components may be required in their construction. Thanks to modern CAD technology these massive buildings can now be designed as three-dimensional structures - and this is especially useful if the data required for the entire installation is compartmentalised into its separate branches. At Lenzing Technik, for example, the CAD model builds the steel framework using the steelwork design package, while the pipework and equipment emplacements are designed using the plant engineering software. However, these structures cannot really be displayed properly via the CAD system - and certainly not on the normal computers installed in the Lenzing Technik planning department - especially when the new installation is to be presented as a total model image. This is where the JetStream imaging system comes in, with its "Core" Roamer and Publisher and Presenter modules.

Data Compression Boosts Performance

JetStream has one massive advantage as far as plant engineering is concerned in that all CAD data required for calculating the imaging process can be input and converted to the program's own compressed .nwd format. This compression facility means that the vast amounts of data normally required when designing a production plant can be easily and quickly processed by normally-equipped computers. JetStream also allows data from various CAD systems to be combined to create a "supermodel".

Armed with these two functions JetStream almost seems to have been predestined for use as a plant engineering tool at Lenzing Technik and that was why Markus Wörmanseder of AXAVIA was so keen for their imaging software to be taken up by the company: "The NavisWorks special data compression facility means that even huge structural models can be viewed and 'toured' in real time - in other words with no time delay whatsoever - just as if you were walking around a real plant. This is an enormous advantage for plant engineering firms."

Gerd Bergner of Lenzing Technik would certainly support this view: "JetStream has simplified our job immensely, since the planning and design processes needed for the steel-erection and plant-engineering work can now be combined into a single model. As a result the plant can be surveyed from all sides and from a full range of perspectives. Thanks to the imaging program all those involved now have a much better feeling for the installation they are designing."

Imaging Begins On Day One

Planning engineers at Lenzing Technik begin to use JetStream at an early stage of the design process. After all, it makes sense to use the model to check out the plant's first design concept. As the design process gets under way images are then produced at regular intervals so that every aspect of the new plant can be examined down to the smallest detail. Another useful feature of JetStream, according to Gerd Bergner, is that that as well as navigating users through the model in any way they choose, the system also gives them the option of moving dynamically through different planes and in this way allows the designers to view structural details that would otherwise be fairly inaccessible.

The JetStream imaging program also allows the design team to work with third parties, for even clients with little or no experience in CAD technology can understand the displayed image and can therefore quickly spot potential problem areas. Images of especially complex sections can also be printed out to serve as assembly instructions for the fitters and technicians. Print-outs of this kind were recently put to good use in a recent project where the network of pipes required for a crystallization unit (part of the recovery system in a viscose-fibre production plant) was so complicated that the fitters responsible for this section could not cope with the isometric drawings.

Internet Discussions

Engineer Bergner also finds the JetStream "redlining function" particularly useful for collaborating with third parties, as this allows selected parts of the plant to be annotated with written information. If, for example, a new pipeline is likely to foul an existing pipe run, or if certain modifications have to be made, then the engineer can highlight the relevant component or area in red and add some notes of his own.

This facility has become almost indispensable when designing an installation for a client other than the parent company. In such cases the project discussions do not have to take place in the engineering department at Lenzing, where the parent company and its subsidiary have their head office, but can be set up using an internet link. Even though the project partners are in various locations around the world they can still view the designs and even go on a virtual tour of the new plant. This is because JetStream Publisher can store the imaging data in such a way that it can be opened and viewed using the free Freedom viewer software, which can be downloaded from the internet. All comments and other information, along with pre-defined perspectives and views of the overall model, are therefore retained and can be retrieved by any of the discussion partners. This ensures that in spite of the distance between the participants everyone involved is talking about one and the same thing.

Safeguarding Know-How

Another important feature for Lenzing engineers is the capacity to assign passwords to the individual models, so that the know-how invested in the detailed plans cannot fall into the wrong hands. Access protection will be even more important in the future, as it will soon be possible to incorporate all the data from the Engineering Module Inventor into the overall model - with the result that each JetStream file will then contain all the information that is relevant for the construction of the plant in question.

While datafiles of this type could be potentially explosive in the wrong hands, they are like gold dust for the marketing men from Lenzing Technik - since the JetStream Module Presenter gives the operator a whole range of options for producing photo-realistic depictions of the installation concerned. And with the materials, textures and shading effects all reproduced in photo-realistic fashion Lenzing Technik now has access to the ideal tool for showing off its technical skills and know-how to potential clients.