Design Process in Investment Projects

Abstract

This Thesis investigates the design process in investment projects of the case company. The existing piping design process in investment projects of the case company is defined and improved based on the findings from the current state analysis and literature related to project engineering. The design process is described from the perspective of piping design process that involves two key design stakeholders: the process design and the mechanical design. To be able to form more in-depth understanding of the piping design process, other stakeholders such as the installation and quality control stakeholders and their needs are also taken into account. The design process was defined through the current state analysis and best practices were found through literature search. Before the current state analysis was conducted, three investment projects are analyzed by conducting a multiple case study. The project challenges found from the multiple case analysis were mostly located on the design process. It was found out that the design stakeholders in the design process of the investment projects are not completely aware of the whole process and how and where the other stakeholders are implementing the data one stakeholder is providing. As a conclusion of the summarized results from the multiple case analysis, the piping design process is defined to improve the understanding between design stakeholders and the usage of data they are providing. The process of the piping design is chosen because all the three case projects included piping design. This study helps to understand the needs and challenges of different design stakeholders in the piping design process of an investment project. The visualized piping design process can be used in the beginning of the project to define tasks and recognize possible risks. As piping is considered as a pressure vessel, the piping design process introduced in this Thesis can also be applied with minor changes in to design of pressure vessels that are widely used in process and energy industry