Through their capital and construction programs utilities and merchant plant developers and owners have accepted a level of risk other industries such as manufacturing no longer find palatable. There are tools available to improve capital projects from conception to design to construction to operations and even through decommissioning. These tools along with well designed business processes collectively make product lifecycle management (PLM) possible for generating companies. PLM has historically been seen in manufacturing, shipbuilding and the aerospace industries. The concept is to manage the product or asset through its entire life cycle. These industries have used this approach in combination with three-dimensional design and simulation tools. For instance, the approach has allowed automobile manufacturers to design automobiles, the manufacturing line and manage vendors and component suppliers in an integrated fashion to assure high quality products are delivered to the marketplace. Boeing has recently reported it uses PLM and software tools from Dassault Systemes to design the 787 Dreamliner and complete a “virtual” rollout of the aircraft including all the manufacturing processes and tools necessary to build the plane. While the power industry does not build thousands of consumer products, but individual power plants, the PLM practices perfected in these other industries can be and should be applied in the next generation of power plants. These practices when properly applied with 3D design and simulation tools will reduce risks and improve the bottom-line of most capital intensive industries including the power industry. The article looks at enhancing the top and bottom lines at electric power plants by using PLM practices and technology that produce ROI by: 1. Process / task optimization 2. Schedule optimization and validation 3. Knowledge capture Note: Since the power plant is the product of concern, the author has chosen to focus on plant lifecycle management in lieu of the broader; more universally accept phrase product lifecycle management in discussing PLM.
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