José Carlos Aversa and Gilberto Yoshida can’t hide their enthusiasm. “You see the finished project, you can walk through it and talk it over with your partners,” says Aversa, the Odebrecht Engenharia Industrial (Industrial Engineering) Project Director for the construction of the Braskem Green Ethylene plant in Triunfo, Rio Grande do Sul. “You can see every change made in the design – when one pipeline crosses another, and where there is underground wiring,” adds Yoshida, who was Odebrecht Engenharia Industrial’s Engineering Coordinator for the construction of Braskem’s polypropylene unit in Paulínia, São Paulo, which opened in 2008. They are referring to a new tool called Smartplan – software technology that makes it possible to design plants in 3D: buildings, pipelines, all the electric and water and sewer systems – everything.

The Paulínia plant was the first project in Brazil to be designed with Smartplan, a computer program developed by the US company Intergraph and distributed in Brazil by Sisgrap. Genpro Engenharia, Odebrecht’s partner on this project, uses it to produce blueprints for the plant. Gilberto Yoshida explains that, compared to conventional methods, the amount of time saved thanks to Smartplan is about four months. “The benefits go beyond the visuals,” he argues. “With Smartplan, you have a database of parts and equipment at your disposal that is replenished with every project.”

Completed in April, the detailed engineering of Braskem’s Green Ethylene Plant in Triunfo was the second project to use this tool. “Today’s engineers have assimilated the program and already gained more design knowhow,” says José Carlos Aversa. He adds that one of Smartplan’s main advantages is enabling engineers to visualize the project before ground is broken.

Eduardo Turchet, the officer Responsible for Engineering on the Green Ethylene plant construction project, has only used two-dimensional designs in college, from which he recently graduated. Since he joined Odebrecht Engenharia Industrial three years ago, he has only worked with 3D tools on the company’s projects. “In 2D, you have to imagine the project, whereas with Smartplan, you have a spatial view of it, which lets you work with any design changes more effectively.”

The next project to be designed in 3D with Smartplan will be Braskem’s new PVC resin unit, which will be built at the MarechalDeodoro Industrial Complex in Alagoas.