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Approach to Model Building

There are several approaches you can take when building a Model of your process. Therefore, we recommend that you use the following guidelines to help you decide on the best approach for your process.

  • Step 1: Determine the extent of the project you want to model. Are you modeling the entire plant? A single unit of the plant? Several connected units? A sub-unit? Are you designing a visual-only representation of the plant, or do you intend to link the components of the Model to an analysis and the AF Database?
  • Step 2: Assemble the information you need to create the model; blueprints, component lists (boilers, hoppers, tanks, etc.), meters, connections, etc.
  • Step 3: Assemble tabular data, such as the following:
  • List of products, materials, and components to track in the Sigmafine model.
  • Plant engineering standards.
  • Tank Strapping tables.
  • Step 4: Define the elements that comprise the model, their properties (attributes) connections, etc. You can do this in the ProcessBook Sigmafine Modeler Add-In or in the System Explorer. Since many elements can be very similar, it is possible to define Attributes in the Element templates to make it easier to create the individual elements with these Attributes predefined.
  • Step 5: Create a new Model in the Sigmafine Modeler and begin adding the elements to it. For a large project, it may be advisable to have a graphical editor work on the visualization in Sigmafine Modeler while a process engineer continues work on the Element library in the AF database.
  • Step 6: Test and validate the Model against expected results using an analysis rule.
  • Step 7: Configure and begin running analysis on the model. The following links cover these tasks:
  • Build Mode / Run Mode Considerations
  • Saving and Checking In Changes