Global Business Environment
for desalination and water treatment projects

4. Product identification management

In a nutshell, this is how to link the P&ID item to the product on the market. It is a problem of vague identities. The major contributor to this problem is the component standardization across the projects and design conditions. For instance the same pump may be applied for a range of flow rates and pressures, which in most cases overlaps the design process conditions in a number of projects. The necessity and effect of standardization grow with a number of projects done.
The notion of standardized component may stem from standardized design conditions (the same pressures, flow rates and water quality) or be equivalent to the notion of generic product especially for companies mainly engaged in the assembly of the procured components. The reverse osmosis desalination units are the example of such activity. The generic product may be considered a common denominator of the constantly evolving products A, B, C, D on the market. PIN is a Product Identification Index into unique set of stable attributes describing generic product functionality, design and construction. These attributes are major price-formers as well.
PIN is a domain of the procurement personnel. The existing practice of converting the unique set of the item attributes into PIN is to decrease their number to 2-3 basic ones (according to the problem perception by a person) and encoding them with a specific range of numbers. Unfortunately, all this system comes to a halt when a somehow missed attribute is added to a set of the recorded ones. Loosely defined PIN can not be used for building the standard component library and reference list (the company "know-how") and add more working hours to the project timetable, spent on technical comparison of the vendor quotations. These issues are critical to the project development and the plant future operation and maintenance.
GBE auto-generates PIN and builds the standard component library and reference list.