9

Management of P&ID Development

2.1 ­Project of Developing P&IDs review them. These P&IDs represent the first thoughts
about a plant and will be used as a starting point.
If the development of the P&IDs is viewed as a project Some engineering companies issue one other revision
(inside of the main plant design project), it has some fea- of P&IDs before this milestone, and it is known as Issued
tures that need to be addressed to successfully complete for Internal Review, or IFIR. The objective of this IFIR is
it. The questions that should be answered are: Who to have a set of P&IDs for review by the engineering
should develop P&ID? How many man‐hours is needed? company without the participation of the client. Not all
Which quality should be followed? engineering companies issue IFIR P&IDs even though
These questions are answered in this chapter. they do need to internally review the drawings before
allowing the client to look them over. Companies do this
without officially issuing a P&ID as IFIR; they simply
2.2 ­P&ID Milestones perform the internal review based on the latest copy of
the P&IDs.
P&ID development is a smooth evolution of a P&ID to The next milestone of P&ID development is IFA. After
the completion revision. However, because of different the client has reviewed the IFR version of the P&IDs,
reasons, this smooth movement is split into different they mark up the P&IDS with their thoughts and
steps by project gates. These project gates are check- requirements and then return the marked‐up P&IDs to
points to evaluate the set of P&IDs, to make sure that the the engineering company. The engineering company
project goes toward the direction it was intended, and to will then implement and address the client’s markups on
check the cost of the project for go or no‐go decision. the P&IDs; however, they do not do so blindly. For each
A P&ID sheet may start as blank, but more commonly, individual markup, there may be many discussions, cal-
it starts with a “go‐by sterilized” diagram. A go‐by steri- culations, and studies to support the client’s markup or
lized diagram is a P&ID with some elements of the design alternatives. After all of these activities are complete and
from a previous similar project. An engineering com- the client’s markups have been implemented on the
pany with experience in a specific type of design may P&IDs (or some other agreed‐upon solution has been
decide to start the P&ID development activities from a established), the next revision of the P&IDs is ready to
similar project P&ID after removing the confidential be issued; this is the IFA. At the end of this phase, the
aspects and details of the drawing. The P&ID is stripped P&IDs are presented to the client, and the engineering
of confidential information and is known as a “sterilized” company waits for client approval.
diagram. Clients may need some time for approval, and they
What is shown on the P&ID in the early stages of a may bring up new concerns that need to be addressed.
project is a vague idea of a plant, whereas in the later Therefore, an IFR revision of P&IDs with the client’s
stages of the project, the P&ID can finally be used for the markups will also then be returned to the engineering
construction of the plant. This last revision of a P&ID in company. At this point, the engineering company starts
a design project is Issued for Construction, or IFC. The to implement the client’s new markups (or convince the
P&ID goes through different milestones during a pro- client on an alternative), and they also start adding more
ject: Issued for Review (IFR), Issued for Approval (IFA), details to the P&IDs. At the end of this period, the P&IDs
Issued for Design (IFD), and IFC (Figure 2.1). will be issued as IFD. The phrase issued for design seems
The first step is IFR. In this step, an engineering com- weird. A question may arise: “Then what was the nature
pany has completed the primary P&IDs and lets the client of all the activities before the IFD version of P&IDs?

Piping and Instrumentation Diagram Development, First Edition. Moe Toghraei.

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/Toghraei_PID
10 Piping and Instrumentation Diagram Development

IFR IFA IFD IFC issued P&IDs, the revision of the P&IDs is Issued for
HAZOP, or IFH. Not all companies issue an IFH version
Figure 2.1 The P&ID milestones. of P&IDs for the purpose of the HAZOP study, and
instead they do the HAZOP on the latest available P&IDs.
As was mentioned, all the activities after the IFD ver-
Were they not design work?” However, the word design sion of P&ID are part of detailed engineering. The client
in IFD has a specific meaning. It means “design by groups decides which activities should be done during the FEED
other than Process discipline.” After issuing IFD P&IDs, stage of the project and which activities can be left for
the Process group lets other groups know that “my design the detailed‐engineering stage. A client can decide how
is almost done and is firm, so all other groups can start complete a P&ID should be at each milestone. However,
their designs based on these (fairly) firm P&IDs.” there is one thing that is almost universally accepted:
This is an important step because groups other than There should be no contact with vendors during the
Process, including Instrumentation and Control, Piping, FEED stage of a project, and all vendor contacts can start
Mechanical, Electrical, and Civil can only start their during the detailed‐engineering stage to eliminate ven-
(main) design based on a firm process design. If others dors’ involvement in process selection and design.
start their design before a firmed‐up process design, it This also means that all the information on the P&IDs
may end up being costly because every change in the up to the IFD version comes from the engineering com-
process design will impact other groups’ designs. pany’s experience and knowledge, and if there is a need
However, it should be noted that after the issue of IFD for vendor information, the engineering company uses
P&IDs, it is not the case that process design is finished general vendor information or catalog information.
because process still continues its work but at a different Later, during detailed engineering, all the assumed
and slower pace. vendor‐related information will be evaluated against the
After IFD P&IDs, other groups do not expect the actual information provided by the selected vendor, and
Process group to make big changes to the P&IDs. the information will be fine‐tuned.
All the steps up to the IFD version of P&IDs fall under This concept shows the importance of previous expe-
basic engineering or front‐end engineering and design rience for P&ID development.
(FEED), and all activities after IFD fall under detailed There is one big exception to this rule and that is items
engineering. with a long lead time. Long‐lead items are the equipment
One important activity that should usually be done whose delivery to site is long (maybe 2 years or more).
before the IFD version of P&IDs is the hazard and oper- For long‐lead items, contact with the vendor can be
ability study, or HAZOP. The HAZOP is an activity that started even during the early stages of the project or the
seeks to identify flaws in design. It is a structured and IFR version of the P&IDs, which minimizes the impact
systematic investigation technique to discover flaws in a of long‐lead items on the project schedule. Long‐lead
specific process design. Generally, a HAZOP study is items are generally the main equipment of a plant and
conducted in the form of a multiple‐day meeting with are large or expensive ones. These may be different from
people from different groups present. plant to plant, but in general, equipment such as boilers,
The HAZOP study does not necessarily propose solu- distillation towers, and furnaces can be considered long‐
tions to mitigate a process flaw; rather, it identifies the lead items.
flaws and lists them in a HAZOP recommendation list. It The next, and possibly last, P&ID milestone is IFC.
is then the responsibility of the designer to address these Basically, from a P&ID point of view, the detailed‐engi-
flaws after the HAZOP meetings and close out the neering activity consists of improving the P&ID from the
HAZOP issues. quality of IFD to the quality of IFC.
In an ideal world, the HAZOP would be done before As it was mentioned previously, during P&ID develop-
the IFD version of P&IDs because the HAZOP meeting ment, there could be several economic go or no‐go gates
may impact the process design heavily, and it is a good put in place by the client. At each of these “gates,” the
idea to keep all the big process changes handled before client needs a cost estimation report for the project to
the IFD version of P&IDs. However, some companies check if they want to continue the project, cancel it, or
decide to have HAZOP meetings after IFD P&IDs for put it on hold. Therefore, there are usually three cost
different reasons, including a tight schedule or a lack of estimates during P&ID development. Each cost estimate
detailed P&IDs from vendors. can be done based on a copy of the P&ID set, or the cli-
When a company wants to start a HAZOP study on a ent may ask for an official issue of the P&IDs for the pur-
P&ID set, they may decide to do it on the latest and poses of cost estimation. For cost estimation purposes,
greatest version of the P&IDs, either officially issued or an engineering company may issue P&IDs as Issued for
not. If the decision is to do the HAZOP on officially Estimate, or IFE (Figure 2.2).
 Management of P&ID Development 11

Figure 2.2 A more complete list of P&ID milestones. IFR IFA IFD IFC

IFE
IFIR IFE IFH As-built
Approval Design Construction
Review
Estimate HAZOP
Internal
review
Estimate

In an ideal world, P&IDs will progress from IFR to IFA After commissioning of a process plant, there can be
and finally IFC, but in reality there could be multiple interim reasons to change things in the design such as trouble-
milestones such as re‐IFA, re‐IFD, and multiple re‐IFCs. shooting, upgrading, or other projects. For such cases, a
After building a process plant, what exists does not P&ID should be revised to reflect the new design. The
necessarily comply completely with the IFC version of the designer normally starts with an as‐built P&ID and then
P&ID. There could be some constraints during the con- adds, deletes, or changes things in the P&ID.
struction phase that force the designers to change some
aspects of design and IFC P&ID. Therefore, a final P&ID
should be prepared and issued based on the existing pro- 2.3 ­Involved Parties in P&ID
cess plant. This revision of P&ID is called the “as‐built Development
revision.” An as‐built P&ID could be prepared by collect-
ing all the markups during the construction phase and As was discussed previously, the development of P&IDs
implementing them in IFC version of the P&ID. If there is the result of team activities. People from different
are complicated changes in an area or there is a lack of groups work together to develop a good quality P&ID
thrust to markups on the IFC P&ID, the as‐built P&ID can set. However, their workload is not necessarily the same
be prepared by a group of individuals who trace the differ- during a project (Figure 2.3). Generally at the beginning
ent pipes and draft them. With the outsourcing tasks, an of a project, the Process group is heavily involved in the
as‐built drawing can be prepared remotely with the help of P&ID development, and later the other groups join in
360‐degree cameras placed in suitable locations in a plant. and help add to the P&ID. From the other side, the
Some companies prefer not to use the phrase as‐built Process group is generally the first group that finishes
P&ID and instead use the phrase of as‐recorded P&ID. their task and departs the development team.
This preference is only due to legal concerns. By naming The Instrumentation and Control (I&C) group works
a set of P&ID as‐recorded if an item is missed during at almost the same pace as the Process group. However,
observing or drafting, the engineering company will not I&C adds instruments and control systems on the items
be held liable. that the Process group listed on the P&IDs.
It is important to keep the P&ID of an operating plant The computer‐aided design and drafting (CADD)
updated always. group has a load similar to the Process group, but it is a

Figure 2.3 Workload of different groups during P&ID IFR IFA IFD IFC
development.

Process

CADD

I&C

Piping

Mechanical

Electrical
12 Piping and Instrumentation Diagram Development

bit behind because CADD obtains documents from the aspects of P&ID development and also ensuring uni-
Process group for drafting. formity in P&IDs.
The Piping group generally does not have much
involvement with P&ID development until late stages,
mainly in pipe distribution drawings. The other contri- 2.5 ­Required Quality of the P&ID
bution of the Piping group is placement of drain and vent
valves in different locations.
in Each Stage of Development
The Electrical group does not have much involvement
During the evolution of the P&ID, more details with
in P&ID development. They, however, need to add the
more accuracy are shown on the P&ID. At the early stage
required electric power of equipment on P&ID sheets.
of P&ID development, a person may not see any small‐
The Civil group could end up having no involvement
bore, 2” pipe, but in the last stage of P&ID development,
in the P&ID development unless the containers are of a
IFC revision of that, all 2” pipes should be shown. In
concrete type.
the early stage of a project, the length of a vessel could
Based on the previous section, it can be surmised that
be mentioned at 5000 mm, but the same length would be
the workload of the Process group will decrease after the
seen on an IFC revision of P&ID as 5200 mm.
IFD version of P&IDs, while the workload of the other
But how can one say an issued P&ID as IFA has been
groups will increase.
produced according to quality standards? Each com-
pany has its own standard of quality for the P&IDs in
2.4 ­P&ID Set Owner each stage of development. However, a general under-
standing may exist and can be used as guideline. Because
In an engineering company, each document has an we are not still familiar with all of the elements on
owner and a P&ID is no different. The owner of a docu- a P&ID, such a guideline cannot be explained here.
ment is neither the person who has the sole liability A guideline of acceptable quality of P&IDs is discussed
in Chapter 18.
regarding the content of that document nor the sole per-
son who uses that document. However, a person or
group should be assumed as the go‐to person for issues
regarding that document. The ownership of a document 2.6 ­P&ID Evolution
may be changed at certain times.
A P&ID is not different than other documents; how- During the development of the P&IDs, different parties
ever, the owner of P&ID has a critical role due to the cooperate to increase the quality of the P&IDs. Therefore,
importance of P&ID during the design phase. It is natu- P&IDs evolve during the design stage of projects.
ral tendency for companies to assume that the Process P&IDs evolve in three ways: additions, deletions, and
group is the owner of the P&IDs – which is not always changes. Different individuals from different groups do
the case. In smaller projects in which process activities either or all the “P&ID development actions” on P&ID
are limited, the Mechanical group could be assumed to sheets in the form of “markups”every day or every few days.
be the P&ID owner. In projects that are executed on From time to time, the marked‐up P&ID sheets are
an aggressive schedule, the P&ID owner could be the sent for redrafting to implement all the markups and to
Project Engineering group. Even sometimes when the produce a clean copy of the P&ID.
Process group is selected as the P&ID owner, the own- Some companies have specific rules regarding the
ership of the P&ID can be transferred to the Piping marking up of the P&ID to make life easier for the
group or Project Engineering group after IFD revision Drafting group. A typical guideline is shown in Table 2.1.
of P&ID. This can be done based on the logic that after At the early stages of P&ID development, all the addi-
IFD gate, the Process group will not be the main player tions, deletions, and changes should be done to make
of the game in P&ID development. The other reason sure the P&ID is the best fit for the considered purposes.
could be, as some people say, that “if the P&ID remains Later during P&ID development, only the additions,
in the hands of the Process group, then P&IDs will never deletions, and changes that are musts, and not necessarily
be finished because the Process group tends to keep preferences, should be done.
changing them!”
Within the Process group, the P&ID development
could be handled in a nonstructured way, or it can 2.7 ­Tracking Changes in P&IDs
be put on the shoulders of a P&ID administrator or a
P&ID coordinator. In large projects, the responsibility Do we need to keep track of changes or not? How can we
of a P&ID administrator is handling the nontechnical keep track of constant additions and changes?
 Management of P&ID Development 13

Table 2.1 Change markups on P&IDs. IFR IFA IFD IFC

Intention Color used

Marking up without tracking

Addition Blue Marking up with initial

Red Marking up with logging and team approval

Document change notice before marking up

Figure 2.4 Management of change on P&IDs.

Deletion Red
Blue
and approve or reject every proposed change. In this
stage, no change on a P&ID can be marked up before
approval by the group lead. In later stages of project (e.g.
post‐IFC stage), every single change may need to be filed
Comment Black in a change notice.
This concept is shown in Figure 2.4.

2.8 ­Required Man‐Hours
for the Development of P&IDs
It is difficult to introduce a methodology for predicting
the required man‐hours for P&ID development because
At the beginning of the P&ID development, there is each company may use its own methodologies for pre-
no need to keep track of changes as there can be huge dicting the required man‐hours. The required man‐
additions or changes on P&IDs, and also those changes hours depends on the available tools in companies, the
generally do not have any impact on other groups’ maturity and completeness of their P&ID development
schedule and budget. This period could be the pre‐IFA guidelines, and the skill of the designers.
period. The estimation of man‐hours is normally the respon-
After getting close to a stage that a “skeleton” of a sibility of each group. Process, Instrumentation and
P&ID is developed, the program of keeping track of the Control, Drafting, Piping, Mechanical, Civil, and other
markups should be started. For example, it could be groups estimate their own hours for P&ID development.
instructed that every change on P&ID should be logged However, in some engineering companies, only two
with initials and the date. Or the procedure could be groups (Process and I&C) consider and assign man‐hours
that every single change should be marked up and ini- under the category of P&ID development. The other
tialed, but it will remain there if it is approved by the groups generally do not assign specific separate man‐
Process group or by the Process group and the project hours for their P&ID involvement; it could be because
engineers. This type of tracking program could be their involvement is not as large as that of the two main
implemented for the P&ID development between IFR contributors of P&ID development.
and IFA or IFA and IFD. The Piping group has a specific role. On the one hand,
After issuing an IFD begins a critical period of P&ID they are mainly the “users” of P&IDs wherein one may
development. In this stage, all other groups start to do say they do not need any assigned man‐hours for P&ID
their work. Then, every change on the P&ID may impact development. They, however, may need to contribute to
them. Therefore, a more stringent tracking program the P&ID development during detail stage of project.
should be implemented. In this stage, no P&ID change There are cases in which the Piping group design affects
can be added unless it is approved and signed off by the P&ID. In such cases, the Piping group may need to
other groups including the project engineer or manager. incorporate changes on the P&ID.
Therefore, for P&ID additions, deletions, or changes The goal of man‐hour estimation for P&ID develop-
after IFD, a document package should be prepared and ment is coming up with required man‐hours for develop-
the change title logged in a log sheet by the proposer of ing each single P&ID for each incremental development
the change for every change. There is usually a P&ID or for development from the beginning to the IFC revi-
change meeting on a weekly or biweekly basis to discuss sion of P&ID. For example, a process engineering lead
14 Piping and Instrumentation Diagram Development

may say: “for this P&ID sheet there is a need to expend 4) Time required to implement the reviewers’ comments
100 hours from the IFR to IFC.” on the P&ID.
It is important to know the time required to develop a 5) Time that a “Document Control group” needs to offi-
P&ID sheet comprises five time spans: cially issue the P&ID sheet.
1) Time to develop the technical content of P&ID. The first item is the technical component of the man‐
2) Time to get the drawing drafted. hours, which relates to developing the technical content
3) Time required by the reviewers and approvers to of P&ID.
check and sign the P&ID.