PlantWise Creates Optimized Plant Layouts, Pipe Routing; Provides Material Takeoff and Costing Up to $1 Million in Project Savings Reported

Design Power, Inc. is advancing its technology for engineered-to-order (ETO) applications that optimize the front-end engineering phase of process plant design. Founded in 1989 to develop and market software based on artificial-intelligence research conducted at Nokia Corporation, today the company is at the forefront of providing knowledge-centric solutions for the earliest phases of project work, where faster and better-informed decision-making can have the greatest impact on schedules and cost.

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PlantWise, Design Power's software suite for the process industry, helps create optimal plant layouts with equipment, structures and automatically routed pipelines. It also generates accurate material takeoffs and identifies costs at the beginning of projects, avoiding costly last-minute revisions. Designed to enable rapid creation and visualization of plant concepts, the software also supports collaborative review of constructability, operation, maintenance and safety.

Owner/operators and EPCs using PlantWise have saved more than $1 million on a single project, the company reports. Design Power has built an impressive list of PlantWise customers including Bayer, Black and Veatch Pritchard, Fluor Daniel, Snamprogetti, Techint, Toyo Engineering and others.

PlantWise users interviewed by Daratech lauded the software for the power of its optimization technology, its simplicity of use, and its visualization capabilities. Users likewise commended Design Power for its commitment to steadily expanding and extending the software, and its attentiveness to customer needs. "I've seen this tool develop from infancy to a base pipe router to a powerful visualization tool," said one, "and I'd like to see it go as far as possible, to become the ultimate plant layout tool." Said another, "Design Power's ability and willingness to accept input, and modify and make updates to the program to meet our needs, is phenomenal."