SparxSystems CE: Extension for the chemical industry

Enterprise Architect is praised by its approximately 740,000 users worldwide for its openness and excellent extension possibilities. For example, MDG technologies for specific domains and notations can be seamlessly integrated into Enterprise Architect to provide additional toolboxes, UML profiles, patterns, templates and other modeling resources. Jan de Liefde from the Dutch company "The Collective. The Systems Integration Company" has used this opportunity to give interested parties the opportunity to model systems according to ISA88/IEC 61512 (batch industry): "The use of Enterprise Architect in the process industry is not widespread. We have developed an MDG for the (batch) process industry based on the ANSI/ISA S88 standard and extended it by the possibility to create piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&ID) and functional block diagrams (FBD).“

Hans Bartmann, Managing Director of SparxSystems CE: "We are very pleased that MDG technology is now available for the important process industry. This means that the advantages of Enterprise Architect can also be used in this technologically demanding industry, which is characterized by continuous innovation.“

Enterprise Architect guarantees compliance with standards

In contrast to a continuous process, in batch (discontinuous/batch) processing material is processed in a production vessel and then completely removed. ISA 88 (International Society of Automation) is a standard for batch process control and a design philosophy for describing equipment and processes. This standard applies equally to software and manual processes. Jan de Liefde: "With our development, the physical model as well as the processes and recipes can be modelled in a standard-conform way.“

Toolboxes facilitate modelling

The toolbox for the physical model supports in different process flows such as liquid, gas and steam. Such physical models are converted into Piping & Instrumentation Model (P&ID) diagrams using the "PID Toolbox". This toolbox contains objects like valves, vessels, instrumentation and pumps.

The "Procedure Toolbox“ in turn supports the development of process models in procedures, operations, phases and actions. "The flow between the elements in these process models can be generated by control flows or conditional control flows and extended by material flows“, says the developer.

The "Recipe Toolbox" supports the creation of recipe models in which recipes can be extended with additional information and parameters. The various recipes can be linked to each other by reference or copy.

For further process automation, objects such as motors, valves, containers and instrumentation must be monitored and controlled. IEC61131 describes so-called functional block diagrams (FBD) for this purpose. “The "FBD Toolbox", also created by us, supports the creation of functional block diagrams. These composite diagrams can also be associated with actions defined in the process diagram“, concludes Jan de Liefde.

About The Collective. “The Systems Integration Company“

The Collective SI B.V. (The Netherlands) was founded in 2017 and is a consulting company with a strong focus on Model Based (Systems) Engineering and Systems Integration. Enterprise Architect is used to model different kind of systems within the domains infrastructure (e.g.  sluices, locks, tunnel, rail, etc.) and industry.

www.thecollective.si