Process Service – Design of demanding pharmaceutical plants

Pharmaceutical plant excellence

Engineering company integrates Cadmatic with other software packages for demanding pharmaceutical plant design projects. 

Customer challenge

  • Need to integrate different disciplines such as piping, cable routing, air conditioning, instruments and electrical plants, structural elements and pharma walls.

Cadmatic solution

  • Flexible and customizable software allows great amount of integration with other disciplines.

"The possibility to insert part of a plant developed by other technical departments, for example, civil and structural engineering, the layout of pharma rooms and equipment drawings is fundamental and significantly reduces the amount of hours used for modelling.” – Alessandro Pietra, Managing Director

Does your engineering company also require a lot of integration between disciplines? Contac us so we can show you how to do this seamlessly with Cadmatic.

Process Service is an Italian engineering company focused on the design of chemical and pharmaceutical plants. Since late 2017, the Milan-based company has used Cadmatic successfully for demanding pharmaceutical plant design. The company is particularly satisfied with Cadmatic’s integration with other software packages and the ease with which models can be shared and modified.

According to Process Service Managing Director Alessandro Pietra, the company started using Cadmatic in late 2017 for the piping design of a new project. Prior to implementing Cadmatic, the company had been searching for a 3D design software that was suitable for modelling pharmaceutical plants.

“We took a calculated risk by using Cadmatic at the time as the software was unknown to us and the project we implemented it on was very important. Looking back, it was a risk well worth taking,”

Integrating different disciplines in pharmaceutical plant design

In pharmaceutical projects, the integration of different disciplines such as piping, cable routing, air conditioning, instruments and electrical plants, structural elements and pharma walls are particularly important. It is also crucial that the plant model can be easily modified according to client requests.

“With Cadmatic, you can customize every part of the model and it also allows a great amount of integration with other disciplines.”
“Cadmatic meets these requirements perfectly. In addition, we also use eBrowser to share the model during plant development,which is a winning strategy in pharmaceutical plant projects. We share the reader-only and very light files with our clients on a weekly basis to present technical solutions and how our work is progressing. Clients often change their opinions regarding technical solutions, usually when pipes and ducts are already designed. The ability to see the plant in 3D before construction reduces the amount of rework a lot,” says Alessandro.

He points out that pharmaceutical plants require many “special parts” that are not available in standard libraries. In this respect, he is also satisfied with Cadmatic’s ability to model and insert customized equipment with appropriate connections.

“With Cadmatic, you can customize every part of the model and it also allows a great amount of integration with other disciplines. At Process Service, we often use the expression “Cadmatic eats everything”. The possibility to insert part of a plant developed by other technical departments, for example, civil and structural engineering, the layout of pharma rooms and equipment drawings is fundamental and significantly reduces the amount of hours used for modelling.”

On a typical Process Service project, the structural part of the model is developed with another software package. It is converted into an IFC file and imported into the project. Pharma rooms with doors, windows, and counterceilings are done in the same way.

3D Plant model

3D Plant model
3D model images of an active pharmaceutical ingredient plant designed by Process Service for Fabbrica Italiana Sintetici SpA.

Developing new piping components

Alessandro underlines the importance of being able to develop new piping components when needed. Process Service has cooperated with Cadmatic support to develop two new piping classes that were not present in the standard library.

“We developed sanitary class pipes and valves according to the ASME-BPE standard and PTFE- class pipes, components and valves according to the DIN 2848 standard. We created the components and rules for piping modelling from scratch. We can now model and extract final documentation for piping, the plant and sketches with excellent results,”says Alessandro.

When asked about other Cadmatic features they appreciate at Process Service, Alessandro highlights the ability to clash check across different disciplines. He indicates that clashes are often the first source of problems in pharmaceutical plants.

“The clash check tool works well, also with imported objects. With the use of the tool the probability of making errors is very low”.

Process Service are also very satisfied with the material list extraction.

“We can extract the material lists according to various criteria very quickly. It is not only fast, but we can do it at any stage of the project,”Alessandro concludes.

Read more about Cadmatic solutions

Read more about Cadmatic's plant design solutions and interoperability.