Focus on and promote the internationalization of the pressure vessel design system

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Source: \"Pressure Vessels\", Issue 1, 2011. Although it’s an article from 10 years ago, some issues still exist. Focusing on and Promoting the Internationalization of the Pressure Vessel Design System Fei Wei, Zhang Xuegong (China Global Engineering Corporation, Beijing 100029) Abstract: By taking into account the differences in pressure vessel design systems at home and abroad, this paper outlines the necessity of promoting the internationalization of China’s pressure vessel design system. It analyzes the current situation and existing problems in pressure vessel design carried out by manufacturing plants and engineering companies, and proposes feasible measures for advancing the internationalization of this design system from aspects such as human resource development in manufacturing plants, the thoroughness of drawing reviews, as well as the improvement of design conditions and staff training in engineering companies. Keywords: pressure vessel ； Design system ； Internationalization 0 Introduction With the rapid development of China’s industrial economy, shifting from \"Made in China\" to \"Created in China\" has become a priority, and design agencies, as pioneers of creation, play an important role in this process. However, in the context of globalization, as a product that reflects the level of **specialized equipment, pressure vessels face the awkward situation of having a design system that is only partially aligned with international standards. Through the analysis of specific issues, this article aims to draw the attention of all parties involved in pressure vessel design in China, so as to work together toward the internationalization of China’s pressure vessel design system. 1 Current status of the domestic pressure vessel design system: During the planned economy era, in China the pressure vessel design system consisted of design institutes carrying out the design work, while manufacturing plants were responsible for producing the vessels based on those designs. After the reform and opening up, especially after the 1990s, this system changed, and manufacturing plants began to take on a certain amount of work related to the design of pressure vessels. The reason for this change is that, on the one hand, the chemical industry has seen rapid development with numerous construction projects, which has led to a surge in the amount of work related to design drawings in design firms; the available workforce is not sufficient to meet market demands ； On the other hand, various design institutes have been restructured into engineering companies, shifting their focus to engineering design; as a result, the volume of work related to construction drawings has decreased, and these tasks have been transferred to manufacturing plants ； On the other hand, the general contracting model for operations is beginning to enter China, with numerous manufacturing firms gradually entering both domestic and international markets to undertake the design and manufacture of pressure vessels in accordance with international standards. Therefore, at present, in domestic pressure vessel design, there exists a coexistence of the general contracting model and the existing system, with both engineering companies and manufacturing plants engaging in the design of pressure vessel construction drawings. Although certain progress has been made in aligning the domestic design system for pressure vessels with international standards, due to the influence of the existing system and other factors, this change is still mainly superficial; the quality of the design itself is still far from reaching the level of international standards. The most prominent issue is that the overall design capability of pressure vessels in manufacturing plants is not high enough; there is a lack of the means and expertise to design large-scale equipment, equipment made from special materials, equipment with special structures, as well as analysis and design tools. As a result, most of these types of equipment are currently supplied by foreign manufacturers. Foreign manufacturers of pressure vessels were originally concentrated in Japan, Europe, and the United States, but now equipment supplied by manufacturers in India and South Korea occupies a large share of the domestic market. In recent years, the equipment capabilities of domestic pressure vessel manufacturers have improved significantly; the gap between domestic and foreign manufacturers is now more evident in terms of design capabilities and other technologies. Improving the design capabilities of domestic manufacturers and advancing the internationalization of the pressure vessel design system are common aspirations of the pressure vessel design industry. To change this situation, it is necessary to study the current status and existing problems in various aspects. 2 Current Status and Issues in Pressure Vessel Design 2.1 Current Status and Issues of Manufacturers 2.1.1 Status of Design Tasks (1) In turnkey projects, the general contractor (engineering company) enters into equipment contracts with manufacturers; the contractor (engineering company) provides the design specifications, while the manufacturer is responsible for the design and manufacture of the equipment ； (2) The manufacturer enters into a contract for individual equipment with the end user; the user provides the design requirements, while the manufacturer is responsible for the design and manufacturing of the equipment ； (3) A design subcontract is signed with an engineering company; the engineering company provides the design requirements, while the manufacturer is responsible only for the design of the equipment. 2.1.2 Current status of designers: At present, pressure vessel manufacturing plants in China typically have 10 to 20 designers; smaller plants have no more than 10 designers, while larger plants generally have no more than 30. Moreover, there is a high turnover rate among these designers, with a trend toward younger professionals. Furthermore, due to the focus of their work, manufacturers find it difficult to assign dedicated roles to internal designers; only a few large manufacturers have designers who specialize in the design of pressure vessels. In many manufacturers, designers also handle process-related tasks, and those responsible for approval are usually the chief engineer, with some approvals coming from departmental managers. 2.1.3 Current status of design capabilities Due to differences in scale, business experience, and personnel composition, the design capabilities of domestic pressure vessel manufacturers vary widely, with a tendency to be at a medium to low level. Generally, the design departments of manufacturing plants possess the capability to design conventional pressure vessels, such as various types of containers and heat exchangers; only some manufacturers can design columns, and very few can design high-pressure equipment. Furthermore, the investigation found that only a few domestic manufacturers currently possess the qualifications for analytical design, and their capabilities and standards are generally average. Furthermore, in terms of the depth of the design drawings, the level of manufacturing plants is far lower than that of various design institutes. 2.1.4 Existing problems: (1) In terms of human resources, as mid-career designers take on management and leadership roles, the workforce is continuously replenished with younger individuals, which forces those who have only been in the industry for a few years to obtain auditor qualifications. Furthermore, since designers in manufacturing plants are generally considered to be in lower-level positions with relatively low salaries, once they have accumulated some design experience, many of them switch to companies that offer better compensation, which leads to instability in the design staff at these manufacturing plants. Furthermore, affected by seasonal fluctuations and the volume of orders, most designers experience uneven workloads, being busy when there are design tasks and idle when there aren’t. Furthermore, as the plant’s chief engineer and the approver/auditor for department heads, the focus of work is on manufacturing across the entire plant and administrative management, leaving no time to oversee key design issues. (2) In terms of design capabilities and skills, most manufacturing plants in the country lack the ability to design analytical equipment, complex large-scale towers, high-pressure equipment, equipment made from special materials, and equipment with special structures. Designers only have some experience in designing the types of equipment that their own plants manufacture regularly. Furthermore, although the basic requirements of the specifications can be reflected in the design, the highly empirical design techniques are clearly insufficient, resulting in many graphical issues. Furthermore, due to the limited difference in skills between proofreaders and reviewers, coupled with the extremely short time allocated for these tasks, the proofreading and review work often fails to be done properly. (3) Operational issues in manufacturing plants: Due to the market mechanism, which combines the international model where engineering companies enter into equipment contracts with manufacturing plants, with the traditional model where design institutes process orders based on provided drawings without any contractual relationship with the manufacturing plants, manufacturing plants are unable to plan their pressure vessel design departments. As a result, issues such as the staffing of design personnel, their work directions, ensuring an adequate workload, and their compensation remain unresolved. Design work is not a priority in manufacturing plants, nor is it a key factor for generating profits; therefore, the focus of the factories on the design department is mainly on maintaining the design qualification certificates, while the level of the staff, design capabilities, design methods, and equipment receive limited attention from the factories. 2.2 Current Situation and Issues of Engineering Companies 2.2.1 Current Status of Design Work in Engineering Companies At present, engineering companies carry out their business through the following main methods: (1) General contracting projects account for around half of the projects undertaken by engineering companies. For the vast majority of equipment, it is possible to order it directly from the manufacturers, who are responsible for its design and production; only a very small number of special pieces of equipment are designed by the engineering companies themselves ； (2) Currently, about half of the projects are still in the detailed design phase, with engineering companies handling the detailed design of the equipment ； (3) The engineering company subcontracts the detailed design of the equipment to qualified entities to carry out that work. These units include the design departments of manufacturing plants, the design departments of chemical production enterprises, and other design institutes. 2.2.2 Existing problems (1) In terms of the depth of design requirements, the design specifications provided by engineering companies to manufacturers and designers for turnkey projects and design subcontracting projects are in the form of engineering drawings. In China, engineering drawings are mainly used for preliminary design or submission for approval of basic design, with a limited level of detail. The engineering drawings of foreign engineering companies include the requirements of chemical processing processes for the equipment structure, as well as all mechanical requirements, and are quite comprehensive. The manufacturer only needs to create drawings according to the specified conditions and perform calculations for strength and stiffness. If the detail level of the engineering drawings is insufficient, the manufacturing plant will be unable to understand the design requirements from a chemical process perspective, and the details in the construction drawings will not meet the required standards. (2) In terms of design training, due to the large number of projects undertaken by engineering companies in recent years, there has been no time or effort to train the entities responsible for pressure vessel design, resulting in insufficient understanding of the design requirements on the part of these designers, and failure to meet the specifications regarding the details of the construction drawings ； On the other hand, there is high staff turnover in manufacturing plants, and there are differences between the design philosophies of manufacturing plants and those of design institutes, which prevents the training effects from being long-lasting. 2.3 Other issues: The trust level of end-users is also a factor that affects the improvement of manufacturing plants’ design standards. The influence of the system from the planned economy era still persists today; end-users have high trust in design institutes, but less trust in designs produced by manufacturing factories. Therefore, the level of trust affects the mode in which the project is carried out; end-users require that the equipment be designed by design institutes, which means that manufacturing companies lose the opportunity to carry out the design work. 3 Measures to promote the internationalization of the pressure vessel design system. Some of the issues mentioned above are related to the broader social environment, and require time and societal progress to be resolved gradually; others can be addressed within the pressure vessel design industry by taking appropriate measures. These measures include: (1) Manufacturers should focus on developing human resources for design work. Human resources are fundamental to pressure vessel design, and manufacturers need to pay attention to planning for these resources, ensuring that there are sufficient designers at all levels, training high-calified design reviewers, and maintaining stability among such professionals with guaranteed working hours. (2) Manufacturers conduct more thorough checks and reviews of drawings. Engineering companies carry out very detailed checks and reviews for pressure vessel designs, and the quality of the drawings reflects the technical competence of those who conduct the reviews. Manufacturers clearly do not conduct sufficient proofreading and review of pressure vessel design drawings. In some organizations, reviewers are not given any working hours for this task; the quality of the drawings often reflects the competence of the designers themselves. Improving the design level requires proofreaders and reviewers to enhance their design concepts, clarify the content of proofreading and review, and deepen the quality of these tasks. (3) Engineering companies should refine design conditions further. The designers at engineering companies can understand the requirements imposed by the manufacturing process on equipment structure from an engineering design perspective, but designers at manufacturing plants cannot fully comprehend these requirements from a mechanical design standpoint. Therefore, engineering companies need to improve the depth of engineering drawings as a design requirement, so that the drawings encompass all the details of the design requirements. (4) Engineering companies bear the responsibility of training the design personnel in manufacturing plants. Meeting the requirements of standards and regulations for pressure vessel design constitutes only part of the work involved in pressure vessel design; another aspect involves the structural design and comparison of options as well as the selection of the most suitable solution for the chemical processing process, and this part is not covered by any standards or regulations. Engineering companies have accumulated a lot of experience in this area; designers at manufacturing plants should be supported in this regard. 4 Conclusion There are various reasons that hinder the evolution of the pressure vessel design system. For the design system of pressure vessels to move closer to the international model in terms of both form and content, it is impossible for a single engineering company or the design department of a manufacturing plant to achieve this; it requires the attention of the entire industry as well as the joint efforts of all sectors related to pressure vessels. Furthermore, the existing problems faced by manufacturers and engineering companies also indicate that the evolution of the pressure vessel design system is not merely a matter of design techniques; it cannot be resolved solely through the efforts of engineering professionals, but requires joint efforts from technical, managerial, and decision-making levels. I hope everyone will pay attention to this issue and work together to resolve the existing problems. While promoting the internationalization of China’s pressure vessel design system, we should also raise the overall level of pressure vessel design in the country.