Particularly in Germany, companies are facing
the problem of demographic development.
Many sectors suffer from skilled labor short-
age and companies have to deal with the
great difficulty of recruiting and qualifying
suitable young professionals for specific tasks.
This may lead to a future loss of innovative
strength in research and development depart-
ments. This trend is further aggravated by the
fact that many highly competent senior em-
ployees will leave the companies in the com-
ing years due to age. The companies will then
have to deal with a considerable loss of
knowledge as the know-how of these staff
members was frequently only documented in-
sufficiently. This would inevitably result in
higher costs and reduced competitiveness.
High R&D investments and shorter
time-to-market
Also the chemical company Evonik is facing
this trend. As one of the world‘s leading com-
panies in the specialty chemicals industry, the
permanent development of innovative prod-
ucts and applications represents a strategic
main task. Correspondingly, investments for
research and development amounted to ap-
proximately 365 million Euros in 2011. Roughly
Countering the impending loss of innovative strength2,400 staff members work in the company‘s
research and development (R&D) depart-
ments at more than 35 sites worldwide. Over
700 staff members of this headcount work in
process technology and engineering alone.
Moreover, the company conducts many joint
research activities with other companies, uni-
versities and scientific-technical institutions.
These major R&D expenditures are reflected
by more than 24,000 patents and applica-
tions. The chemical company‘s research and
development processes are based on very
close cooperation with its customers to en-
sure the development of demand-based prod-
ucts. These innovative products have to be
produced and launched as fast as possible in
order to remain competitive. The time pres-
sure regarding the required production plants‘
planning and realization is correspondingly
high.
are matched to our customers’ requirements
even more closely,” comments Dr. Schwarz.
Furthermore, the uniform database supports
interdisciplinary workflows and smoother co-
ordination between the individual depart-
ments. “Long-term success in this highly inno-
vative business necessitates rapid inventions to
outdistance copyists,” emphasizes Dr. Schwarz.
Plant planning as a basis for staff
development
At Evonik Industries, plant designing not only
implies the cooperation of various colleagues
all around the globe for the realization of cus-
tomized plants. The company’s approach to
plant design also includes the qualification of
young colleagues for future tasks in the Evo-
nik group, for example as plant engineers.
Correspondingly, these persons are only as-
signed to the field of plant designing for a
limited period. The resulting constant staff
fluctuation has to be compensated according-
ly. “It is therefore all the more important to
ensure the rapid productivity of our young
colleagues in this situation. From our point of
view, e-blocks can decisively contribute to
time savings for basic engineering and to a
faster utilization of the young engineers’ cre-
ative potential,” Dr. Schwarz concludes.
The standardization of P&ID planning
with the help of the COMOS software offers
considerable time savings.
The uniform database of COMOS
supports interdisciplinary work-
flows on the basis of consistent
data throughout all phases of
the plant lifecycle.
9 COMOS Plant Manager | 3/2012