An integrated approach to representing and accessing design rationale

The design of a chemical plant is a difficult and time-consuming task that requires the co-operation of skilled personnel from many different disciplines. Once a plant has been designed and constructed, it is expected to last for many years. However, design modifications are often made to a plant in order to benefit from the advances made in technology and to meet the changing demands of the market. In order to avoid unsafe changes to a plant, it is very important that the design rationale behind a plant is captured and made easily accessible. This paper describes an Integrated Design Information System (IDIS) that supports the design of chemical plants. The system places particular emphasis on supporting the design process so that the recording of design rationale will be done easily. It provides an integrated framework for recording three different aspects of design rationale: exploration of design alternatives, reasons for design decisions and design constraints. A design example is used to illustrate the different aspects of the system, and to show how they are linked together. Novel facilities to aid the access of information are also described. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.