Feature Report

Engineering
Practice

How to Prepare a
Process Design Basis
Anthony Pavone
SRI Consulting

ntelligent and thorough preparation of a process-design-basis

document can make the difference
between a high-quality design for
a chemical-process project and a poor
one. The process-design-basis document represents the owners instructions to the design engineering organization about what the owner wants
designed, and how the owner wants
the process design to be done. Note
that these instructions to the process
design engineering effort are different
from what the owner would provide to
the basic design/mechanical engineering organization, or the design-construct organization.
Note also the distinction between
a process-design-basis document and
a scope-of-work document. The scope
of work is an integral part of the design basis, but the design basis also
contains much more. The scope of
work defines what is to be done, and
what are the limits of that activity.
The design basis also provides the
who, the how, the why, and the when.
Furthermore, the scope of work rarely
addresses the design philosophy, the
design standards, the execution plan,
the format of deliverables, or the commercial terms.

Don t leave anything out

A fundamental attribute of a good

process-design-basis document is that
nothing important be omitted. The
owners engineer who is charged with
producing such a document accordingly must give at least initial, if not
detailed, attention to all of an extensive list of project aspects:
The overall plant objective
The products that the plant will produce
The process technology to be used
48

Take care not to overlook anything when preparing

this document, which is vital for spelling out a wellplanned chemical-process project.
The checklists and tables in this article
can serve as reminders
Process control philosophy
The management of the project
The project contract
The process design deliverables, and

their format

How information will flow between

the parties during the project

Preferred vendors, if any

Conduct of the process design engi-

neers

The nature of the plantsite

Any unusual economic criteria
The offsite facilities and the infra-

structure requirements

Brownfield-site compatibility
Environmental, safety and vessel-

and structural-design standards,

permits and requirements
Plant operation and maintenance
philosophy
Owners wishes regarding working
capital
The communication system for the
completed plant
The security of the project, and of
the completed plant
Project execution expectations

Objectives, products,
control, management

Some projects are financed with investment adequate to encourage a

long plant operating-life, maximum
run-time between turnarounds, minimal labor intensity, easy switches between product grades, and minimal
bottlenecks during operation. At the
other extreme, the owners objective
is instead to build the lowest-capital-

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHE.COM JUNE 2006

cost plant that can meet capacity and

product specifications. It is important
for the process design organization to
know the owners intentions over this
capital-outlay spectrum.
Also of primary importance is the
product slate that the finished plant is
to produce. How much of each product
is to be made (in tons/year, bottles/day,
or other units)? What specifications
must the product satisfy? Are there
different product grades to be made;
if so, what are the specifications,
and how much of each grade is to be
made? How are the final products to
be stored, packaged, and then transported to customers?
If a particular process technology is
to be used, say so in the document. On
the one hand, this might be a particular, licensed commercial technology;
on the other hand, the specifics of the
process might not be known at this
early stage.
The standards to be used for the
process design are set by the owner,
not the design organization. These
standards include the following:
Load bearing standards (piling,
spread footings)
Structural support standards
Structural integrity standards
Pressure-vessel design standards
(ASME)
Fire protection standards (NFP,
UL)
Equipment standards (API, DIN,
ANSI other)
Testing standards (e.g., ASTM)

TABLE 2. KEY PROCESS DESIGN DELIVERABLES

TABLE 1.

KEY CONTRACT ELEMENTS

Owners scope of work for process
design engineer
Owners list of project deliverables
Owners schedule for project completion

List of engineering deliverables

Construction vehicle list

Accounting records

Tie-in list

Correspondence records

Site layout plan

Project status reports

Site civil drawings (plot plan,

concrete, structural steel,
roadways, drainage, piping
runs above and below ground
and data highways)

Change orders

Agreed-upon terms for reimbursement (lump sum, reimbursable cost,

cost plus fixed fee, percentage of
total capital cost)

Feedstock and product specifications

Schedule for partial payments during

term of contract

Process flow diagrams

Location where design work will be

undertaken
Terms for subcontracting

Input/output diagram

Firewater grid

Block flow diagrams

Electrical supply grid

Piping & instrumentation diagrams

Motor control center map and
specifications

Safety shower and eyewash map

Nighttime plant lighting plan
One-line electrical drawings

Terms for cancellation

Working capital list and specification

(volume and value)

Force majeure provisions

Substation map and specifications

Dispute-resolution/ form and forum

Heat and material balances

Insurance

Control loop drawings

Confidentiality/nondisclosure agreement

Piping specification list

Intellectual property discovery/inventions/ownership

Administration building specifications

One-page instrumentation
specification sheets

Mutual indemnification

Maintenance shop and equipment

Vessel drawings

Taxes

Fleet vehicles

Tankage capacity

Electrical standards (IEEE, NEC,

UL)
The process control philosophy to be
used in the finished plant, as well as
the type of system to be considered for
supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, should be specified in terms of either performance or
specific selection by the owner. The
level of data communication between
the process control function, the onsite
engineering and the maintenance facilities is also to be defined. In many
cases, an operating company will standardize on one particular process-control vendor in order to avoid the need
for staff cross-training. If a vendor has
been designated by the owner, this
should of course be specified in the design basis document.
With respect to the management of
the project, the process-design-basis
document should identify the owners
authorized person for approving all
design activities. The management
chains of command on both the owners side and the engineering organizations side should likewise be spelled
out. Approval mechanisms (embodied
in, for instance, change orders) for all
activities (changes inside scope and
changes outside scope) that would
incur additional cost for the project are
defined. The nature and format of the
design deliverables are to be defined

Process & utility piping list

Control house layout and equipment
Site-wide steam network drawing
HAZOP report
One-page process and utility
equipment specification sheets

Process laboratory specifications

(these two topic are each discussed in

more detail below). The frequency of
progress reports, and how they are to
be presented, must be spelled out. The
project schedule must be defined. And
for most projects, the document should
insist on prior approval in writing before any commitments are made to
outside vendors that could incur future costs or liabilities to the project.
The legal contract between the
owner and the process design engineer must incorporate all the relationship requirements for a successful
outcome. In addition to ones specified
in the preceding paragraph, these involve details concerning the periodic
and end-of-job payments, as well as,
conversely, the interim and final process engineering deliverables to justify
those payments. Several elements that
should be addressed in a good contract
include those listed in Table 1.

Deliverables: content, format

The specifics and the format of the

process design deliverables need to be
explicitly stated in the design basis
document. Key elements include those
shown in Table 2.
As noted in Table 2, one of the items
among the deliverables should be an
input/output diagram that defines the
major inputs to this plant (what feedstocks and their specifications, what

utilities, and other production inputs

such as additives and catalysts), as
well as the major outputs. In most
cases, the quantification of all of these
materials is not yet known at this
stage, but the nature of the inputs and
outputs should be defined to the process design organization.
Format: Owners are entitled to conformance with specific formats for
engineering deliverables, in order to
satisfy companywide and industrially
recognized standards. The format generally addresses such aspects as the
following criteria and guidelines:
Units of measure to be used (metric,
English)
Standardized engineering-drawing
symbols
Equipment numbering and tagging
nomenclature
Instrumentation and control symbols
Units of identification for bulks and
non-Es (bulk equipment represents
simple hardware bought in large
amounts without specific equipment numbers. These items often include block valves, sample and drain
valves, piping, switches, illumination,
walkways and railings, cable and its
housing. Non-Es, or non-equipment,
represent other materials required to
be purchased and consumed on a job,
such as concrete, asphalt, structural

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHE.COM JUNE 2006

49

TABLE 3.

Engineering Practice
and reinforcing steel, insulation,
coatings, and welding rod)
Standardized piping line lists and
tie-in lists
Material balance formats
Equipment and piping one-page
process spec sheets
Pressure vessel and tank drawings
Electrical one-line drawings
Control loop drawings
The size paper to be used for reports
The size paper to be used for drawings
Type-font and letter size
Requirement and format for vendor
cuts (paper drawings, pictures, descriptive material, dimensions and
specifications of specific equipment
provided by a specific vendor)
Owners are also entitled to demand
the use of industry-wide, non-proprietary computer software for generating engineering deliverables. One
reason for this standardization is to
allow computerized translation from
one software package to another. This
entitlement pertains to the software
used for planning and scheduling,
cost estimating, process design, piping
network analysis, process simulation,
computer-aided 2D and 3D design, and
the preparation of written reports.

Project communication

The process design basis document

should include a contract communication specification (CCS). It defines
how information will flow and be
shared during project execution.
The CCS is designed to minimize
communication
misunderstandings
and misinterpretations, and to assure
that all members of the project organization are continuously working off the
most current set of design documents.
The CCS is also intended to optimize
the amount of time and effort expended
for communication between client and
engineer, between members of the design engineering organization, and
with third parties that are involved in
the process design. These third parties
typically include governmental regulators, subcontractors, client employees
not directly involved in the project,
financial institutions, vendors and
suppliers. Key elements of the CCS
include those shown in Table 3. (Com50

CONTRACT COMMUNICATION
SPECIFICATIONS
Documents the goals and objectives
of the project
Specifies the scope of the job
Identifies the members of the team
and their coordinates
Establishes the formats for hard-copy
and electronic project deliverables
Defines the roles and responsibilities
of each team member
Defines the formats of communication
elements, data
Defines what information is to be kept
and archived
Defines binding contractual terms
Formalizes project schedule and
budget

munication involving the plant operating personnel after the plant is up and
running is a separate issue also to be
addressed in the process design basis
document, as discussed below.)

Vendors and engineers

Owners are entitled to provide to the

design engineering organization a
list of preferred or approved vendors,
provided that these vendors operate
where the plant is to be built and that
their products conform to internationally recognized engineering standards
(API, DIN, EU, for instance). The engineering organization is required
to develop its design in a manner
consistent with the use of such preferred vendors; conversely, the owner
is required to provide at least three
preferred vendors for each major kind
of equipment, to avoid issues involving monopoly pricing or proprietary
equipment designs.
Meanwhile, the design basis document should also address any issues
regarding the conduct that is expected
of the design organizations personnel.
Key elements to be addressed include
the following:
Authorizations to visit plantsite
Authorizations to visit owners headquarters site
Suitable attire for visits to plant and
owners site
Personnel protective equipment for
plantsite visits
Issues involving any cultural sensitivities; non-discrimination standards
Owners policy on ethics
Design-team companys policy on
ethics

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHE.COM JUNE 2006

TABLE 4. KEY CHARACTERISTICS

OF PLANTSITE

Subsoil characteristics
Existing facilities that may need to be
demolished or removed
Existing facilities that are to be used/
debottlenecked
Climate
Meteorology
Design for storm intensity (usually 100year basis)
Wind design requirements
Floodplain design requirements
Earthquake design criteria
Sandstorm propensity and intensity
Proximity to airports that would affect
equipment height
Contaminated soils
Snow load and intensity
Corrosive ambient air (e.g., seawater
spray, acid, chlor/alkali environment)
TABLE 5. UNUSUALLY HIGH

COSTS TO WATCH FOR

Economic
factor

Design
impact

High cost
of land

Equipment spacing

Cold
climate

Insulation and freezing

criteria

High water
cost

Desalting/ water recycle/air cooling

High electricity cost

Piping design pressure

drop/alternative drivers

High
Max. conversion/max.
feedstock/
recycle/custody transproduct cost fer metering
High
labor cost

High automation levels/high equipment

reliability

High
capital cost

Materials selection/
process intensification/
design standards

High environjmental
liabilities

Zero discharge/onsite
treatment & disposal

Drugs and alcohol policy and stan-

dards

Controlled-substance

policy and
standards
Policy and reporting requirements
for bribery (Business Roundtable
standards)

Plantsite, offsites, infrastructure

The site chosen for the production facility is to be defined exactly. Where
is it? Why was it chosen? What are
the particular characteristics of this
site that have led the owners man-

TABLE 6.

TYPICAL OFFSITE FACILITIES

Storage facilities for feedstock, products, intermediates, additives and
catalysts
Administration building
Maintenance building
Spare parts warehouse
Medical facilities
Process laboratory and equipment
Training facility
Loading racks (truck and rail)
Religious/cultural facilities
Process flare and flare gas header
Vacuum line (to fuel gas header)
Marine facilities (piers, docks, cranes)

TABLE 7.

MAJOR LIKELY ISSUES ENTAILING

ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS

TABLE 8.

MAJOR ISSUES RELATED TO

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Wastewater treatment standards

Design standards for noise

Process gas discharges to the air

Layout standards for buffer zones

Combustion gas design/emissions

requirements e.g., (low-NOx burners,
two-stage lean burn

Endangered species/habitat evaluation

Solid waste treatment/incineration/

onsite disposal
Particulates in air
Noise
Traffic during construction and operation
Dust/dirt generation during construction
Spill prevention standards

Waterborne plant-support vessels

Rainwater capture and rainwater

overflow

Wastewater treatment facility

Hazardous materials storage

Sludge drying, treatment and disposal

facilities

Tank breathing/floating-roof standards

Plant construction and operation traffic management

Visual standards (height, color, fencing, etc.)
Emergency planning, response and
evacuation
Automatic sensing and alarms for
toxic discharges
Hazardous chemical storage inventory and management
Spill prevention, countermeasures,
and secondary containment
Process wastewater treatment and
disposal
Sanitary wastewater treatment and
disposal

Process incinerator

Planning standards (hazard communication, community notification)

Raw water treatment

Emergency planning/evacuation

Obsolete-equipment storage

Fugitive emissions

Wastewater sludge treatment and

disposal

Lockers/change facilities for O&M

personnel

Periodic emissions (steam air decoking, soot blowing, etc.)

Nonhazardous solid waste treatment

and disposal

Cafeteria
Sanitary facilities and smoking sheds
Fencing and plant security
Fire house, fire water, deluge and
monitors
Emergency showers, eye wash
Process flares and flare headers
Utilities

agement team to select it? Is the site

a greenfield one or a brownfield one?
Issues related to brownfield sites are
discussed separately, in detail, below.
Site-specific and unusual characteristics of the plantsite need to be communicated to the project organization.
Key characteristics of the site that
need to be spelled out include those in
Table 4.
Unusual economic criteria: Most
engineering-design criteria implicitly
contain assumptions dealing with prevailing economic conditions. These assumptions are rarely documented. If a
particular plantsite involves unusually high cost elements, these should
be identified such that the design organization can modify its design criteria accordingly. Some common economic factors, and the design criteria
they affect, are listed in Table 5.
Offsites: Offsites for utilities and accessory facilities are to be defined by

the owner in terms of performance.

The design engineering organization
will convert this input into engineering design specifications. Typical offsite facilities include those in Table 6.
Infrastructure requirements. If
facilities outside of the main process
plant plus its offsite utility facilities
are required, these need to be specified to the design organization. These
infrastructure requirements may well
include outside docks/piers/siding
facilities, transshipment and other
receiving facilities for feedstock and
chemicals, and facilities to ship product to the customer. If intermediate
warehousing facilities are required
away from the plant site, this requirement needs to be defined. Cogeneration, seawater-desalting or other facilities providing utilities to the site are
likewise to be spelled out. Any sharing
of facilities between industrial plants
in a community (fire protection, security, utilities) should also be defined
and specified by the owner.
Brownfield site compatibility: If
the project is to be built at a site with
existing facilities, such that these existing facilities are expected to be used
or available to the project, the demonstrated not design capabilities
of the existing facilities are to be documented so that the engineering orga-

Rainfall/runoff capture and treatment

Incineration requirements
Hazardous solid waste treatment and
disposal
Combustion gas low-NOx burners
and two-stage lean-burn systems
Process gas treatment prior to venting
Tank breathing loss treatment before
venting; reqts. for floating roofs
Flare tip design, steam control, and
flare opacity requirements
Level of treated wastewater recycle
Cooling-water system management

nization can design the new plant to

be consistent with existing facilities.
A key component of the design basis
document is a tie-in list that shows
what facilities are available, exactly
where they are available (location
specific battery limits), and their capabilities. Existing-facility availability should include these items:
Spare infrastructure capacity
Spare utility capacity
Spare tankage capacity
Firewater availability and pressure
Potable-water availability, pressure
Process-water availability, pressure
Raw-water and/or seawater availability and pressure
Boiler-feedwater availability, pressure, composition (TDS, conductivity)

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51

Engineering Practice

TABLE 10.

KEY ISSUES RELATED TO PROJECT EXECUTION

Project schedule preparation
EPC contractor selection

TABLE 9.

MAJOR SAFETY-RELATED
ELEMENTS
Formal statement of management
safety philosophy
Process safety management system
Accountability
Process safety objectives and goals
Process knowledge
Technical documentation requirements

Construction management team selection

Basic engineering
Detailed mechanical design
Construction safety and training program
Ongoing monthly project cost estimates (capital expend. + op.-cost expend.)
Governmental permits
Environmental impact statement preparation
Site layout drawing for construction phase
Equipment receiving, lay down and warehousing strategy
Procurement strategy and standards (preferred vendors, local content, other.)

Process risk management

Operating plant organization chart + head count

HAZOP analysis

Operating organization process training

Change-order management

Operating organization EH&S training

Process & equipment integrity

Construction punch-listing

Human factors engineering

Weld certifications reviewed and approved

Initial and periodic training

Hydrotesting and pipeline blow-out

Safety performance auditing

Company standards and codes
Prevailing legal standards and codes
Incident investigation and remedial
action

Safety facility startup (firewater, flare, etc.)

Utility facility startup
Pre-startup process equipment testing
Instrumentation, electrical and SCADA checkout
No-load process equipment run-in

Audits and corrective action

Catalyst loading and feedstock fill

Enhancement of corporate safety

knowledge & performance

Process plant startup

Flare and flare-header availability

and spare capacity

Available steam

flowrates, pressures and degrees of superheat

Available capacity and pressure of
inert gas and instrument air
Fuel-gas and fuel-oil availability
and pressure
Electric system availability (substation location, capacity, voltage,
phase, frequency)

Environment, safety

The prevailing legal standards covering environmental protection need

to be indicated. These are likely to
include some or all of the issues in
Table 7. The consequent plant-performance requirements and environmental-permit requirements must also
be spelled out by the owner . Likely
major requirements to be addressed
include some or all of those related to
the list in Table 8.
With respect to safety, the design
standards and the procedures to be
utilized to assure inherently safe de52

Steady state operation achieved

Product specifications achieved
Design and turndown capacity achieved
Performance guarantees achieved
Plant commissioned
Plant demonstrated capabilities determined
As-built drawings completed and turned over
EPC contractor deliverables completed and turned over
Plant acceptance and EPC contractor project turn over to owner

sign, construction and operation are

to be specified by the owner. Elements
incorporated in many design basis
documents include those in Table 9.

Operation, maintenance

The owner is required to inform the

engineering organization of the operation-and-maintenance (O&M) philosophy to be reflected by the process
design. Components of this philosophy
include the following:
Expected run length between scheduled turnarounds
Expected equipment runtime between mean failure

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHE.COM JUNE 2006

Level of automatic instrumentation

to be provided that is not needed for

control
Redundant online equipment
Redundant offline equipment
Level of equipment sparing that is
inline
Level of equipment sparing that is
warehoused
Equipment-driver selection and
philosophy
Dual drivers for critical process
equipment
Facilities to be provided with un-interruptible power supplies (UPS)
Equipment-rebuild capabilities onsite

 Equipment rebuild capabilities to be

shopped out
Turndown capability: The plant
is designed for a nameplate capacity (in, for instance, metric tons per
year) at a particular service factor
(operating hours per year divided by
8,760 hours per year). Although the
plant is designed for optimal operation at a particular throughput rate
(stream-day flowrate), business conditions may dictate that the plant run
at substantially lower-than-design
rate for an indefinite period of time.
This turndown ratio should be specified by the owner. There may also be
short-term periods (days, not weeks)
in which the plant should be capable
of running above nameplate capacity in order to recover from outages,
or build inventory in preparation for
turnaround. This turnup ratio should
also be specified.
Working capital: The owner must
provide instructions to the engineering organization as to the design
basis philosophy for the working
capital to be maintained in the plant.
Such working capital includes: the
number of days storage for feedstock,
intermediate and final products; the
additives inventory, in-process and
in-storage catalyst quantities and
spare-catalyst charge requirements;
and the inline equipment spares,
warehoused equipment spares, parts
spares, and construction/maintenance equipment. The owner should
provide instructions on the choice of
purchased equipment versus leased
equipment, especially for fleet and
construction vehicles, distributor
held spares and OEM held spares.
Communication system: The owner
should provide guidance as to the
preferred system for in-plant and
ex-plant communication for the completed and operating facility, including both fixed-line and mobile-line
capability and capacity. If a system operator is required, the owner
should specify the reporting requirements for that operator (usually part
of plant security). External communications capabilities with the owners
headquarters, and with local law enforcement, environmental regulators,
coast-guard and marine officials,
and governmental officials should

be specified in terms of who is to be

contacted, how, by whom, and under
what circumstances. Documentation
needs for ex-plant communications
are also to be specified.
Security. Standards to protect the
plant from unauthorized destructive
actions by either local malcontents or
national or international terrorists
need to be addressed. The primary
issues affect the following:
Equipment layout
Plant access
Emergency and countermeasure
plans
Security fencing
Security people
Personnel hiring/screening procedures
Security communications network
(ex-plant)
Coordination with local law enforcement

Project execution

The focus of this article has been

upon process design. But the process
design organization is in many instances contracted to provide to the
owner a plan for executing the balance of the project, including mechanical and structural design, construction, startup and commissioning. The
owners expectations as to the level
of detail required is to be specified to
the engineer, and guidance should be
provided for the planning components

in Table 10.
Edited by Nicholas P. Chopey

Author
Anthony Pavone manages single-client project
engagements for SRI Consulting (4300 Bohannon Dr., #200, Menlo Park, CA 94025; Phone:
+1 650 384 4311; Fax: +1 650 384 4275; email:
[email protected]). He has been with
SRIC for 16 years; previously, he spent 10 years
with Exxon and 8 years in design and construction with Badger and Parsons. His experience
is subdivided equally among consulting, design
and plant operations; this work has included
petrochemical-plant and pipeline financial
analysis, process and project design, construction management and startup, plant operations,
capital asset valuation, feasibility studies, feedstock purchases, and market pricing. Tony has
also been teaching the chemical engineering
process-design course at Stanford University
since 1994. He has published articles in Chemical Engineering, Chemical Processing, Journal of
Systems Management, Cogeneration and Competitive Power Journal, Chemistry and Industry,
Petroleum Technology Quarterly, and Signal
Magazine. A licensed professional engineer, he
holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
and an M.B.A. from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.

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