Orchestration of modular plants

Procedure and application for orchestration engineering

Abstract

In Modular Automation, the orchestration creates the link between process equipment assemblies (PEA) and  processes towards operation. This paper presents a general methodology, so-called type-based orchestration, on how to design a fully functional modular process plant based on the module type package (MTP). In a number of discussion rounds, the steps were identified, generalized, and formulated as a method. Existing standards were applied to describe additional required information. The resulting phases and steps, as well as the practical application, have shown that a large part of the planning can be done using only the type-information of planned modules. The type-based orchestration is later completed with instance information. The methodology was tested against a  modular distillation plant from the Technical University of Dortmund.