What should new employees in the process systems department of a design institute do?

Don’t the other designers have any work to do either?

Others have things to do, but I’m at a point where I can’t even understand a PFD, let alone figure out what others are doing. I’m asking for guidance on what I should do to get started

If you can’t even understand the PFD, focus on understanding it first. Then calculations are performed based on the PFD, and these results are compared with those calculated by others in the past to see what differences there are. At the same time, think more about why it is set up this way.

Okay, by the way, can the thread owner recommend some learning materials for getting started with PFD? Sometimes, larger flowcharts can be confusing to understand; there are many English abbreviations that one isn’t familiar with, which makes it exhausting to look at them.

Read more relevant design specifications (national standards/chemical industry standards)

A proper PFD should come with a legend; if not, you can refer to the legend in the process diagram to understand the contents of the PFD. I’m not sure what area of design you work in

I work in the field of petrochemical design; when I was in school, I thought it involved only simple equipment such as towers and storage tanks, but it turned out to be much more complex once I started working. . .

I feel like I went through the guidelines once but basically forgot everything. . . I really can’t remember it; does one still need to engage in practical projects to learn more?

From my personal experience, I think it’s better to start by looking at the specifications first. When I first started working there, I had nothing to do, so I would look at the old drawings from the company. At first I couldn’t understand them, but as mentioned above, I started by studying the legends – beginning with the simplest English abbreviations and valve symbols – and gradually learned to understand them. But there were many things I didn’t understand, such as why this tank required an on-site pressure gauge and why that one needed pressure transmission. At first, I just drew diagrams by referring to previous ones; later on, I started looking up specifications, manuals, standards, and so on, and only then did I understand everything. When I first joined the design institute, there wasn’t much to do – after all, as a recent graduate, I couldn’t do much yet. I had to learn the basics first. I regret not having spent more time studying those standards and specifications back then; now I still have to take time out to consult them while drawing diagrams. It’s just my personal experience – please don’t criticize if you disagree

Thank you to the thread owner for sharing their experience. It’s indeed true that when we new employees arrived, no tasks were assigned to us; they just gave us two sets of guidelines to read. We could barely remember anything after reading them, and it felt like we had no idea what to do. Now, thanks to what the thread owner said, we at least have some direction. I’ll take the opportunity to read those guidelines several times more while I’m free.