OpenPlant CONNECT Edition deploys Bentley’s iModelHub

Improve design efficiency with OpenPlant CONNECT Edition. Image: Courtesy of Bentley Systems

Exton, Pa. — Bentley Systems announced the availability of OpenPlant CONNECT Edition, the latest of Bentley’s plant design offerings that allows users in the process and manufacturing industries to improve design and operations with a collaborative, intelligent, 2D and 3D plant design environment based on open data standards. OpenPlant CONNECT Edition now provides owner-operators and engineering, procurement, and construction companies the ability to design and manage their plant data through cloud-based services, while supporting reliable and asynchronous project visibility, anytime, anywhere.

OpenPlant CONNECT Edition is the first application in Bentley’s multi-discipline plant design to utilize iModelHub, Bentley’s cloud service, which tracks all changes made to project designs and notifies users of changes. Participants can choose to synchronize to and from particular timeline milestones and can visualize, summarize, analyze, and interpret the impact of ongoing changes.

Utilizing the integration between OpenPlant and iModelHub, users can synchronize 3D models from OpenPlant with iModelHub, to view and query the model data in a web-based interface. Users can also perform 2D and 3D consistency checking through integration with OpenPlant PID. A full history of all the changes made to the 3D model and 2D designs are synchronized to iModelHub, including who made changes, what was changed, when changes were made, and the date the changes were completed.

In addition, Bentley said that OpenPlant CONNECT Edition with iModelHub improves plant design collaboration and saves project time with the following capabilities:

• easy access to project data through ProjectWise and ProjectWise Connection Services for cloud-based workflows granting access to services for data editing, tag creation, reporting, and dashboarding of all user data that has been synchronized to iModelHub;
• improved isometric production with the additional ability to generate isometrics based on pipeline data that has been synchronized with iModelHub; and
• enhanced interaction with third-party data via the ability to review PDMS, E3D, and Smart 3D data and models in the context of the connected data environment that provides all the change tracking implicit with the use of iModelHub.

Artur Abramowicz, project manager, ICHEMAD, said, “Bentley software is the key to optimizing the design and plant construction. We achieve visible targets such as quality, optimization of time and financial gains. For me, this is the key to success.”

Jesse Wolfe, CAD manager for Wink Engineering, said, “The Isometrics Style configuration tools in OpenPlant Isometrics Manager CONNECT Edition will save us much time in drawing production. This will allow us to quickly customize the isometrics style to accommodate multiple client standards. The ability to import data from an iModel or an external source such as a database or spreadsheet saves us much time, allowing us to validate data at a single point rather than manually enter it on each drawing.”

Ken Adamson, vice president, building, electrical, plant, and structural detailing for Bentley Systems, said, “The new cloud-based capabilities for managing changes to the project, as well as querying, reporting, and monitoring the health of our users’ projects with OpenPlant CONNECT Edition and iModelHub provides improved insights for all project participants.” Adamson continued, “The improvements in productivity and efficiency with redesigned user interfaces, interdisciplinary coordination between 2D and 3D models, and the addition of CONNECT Advisor with context-sensitive searches of learning content from multiple sources as an in-product experience, provides a truly significant leap forward in how organizations manage, execute, and maintain plant facilities.”