Engineering for a project – either a new production line, an extension or a rehabilitation – is a step-wise process. It may also be an iterative process to develop the solutions and implement the requirements from all stakeholders in the project.

Engineering requires the coordination of several disciplines like process design, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, electrical engineering and automation, etc.

IBBL, as a consulting and engineering company, is providing the full scope of engineering services.

The description of the engineering on this page is general. The level of details in each design stage depend on the industry and on the project. In certain cases, e.g. the conceptual engineering and the basic engineering may even be carried out in one step.

Conceptual engineering

The first step in an early phase of the design process is the conceptual engineering. The broad outlines of function and form of the plant or the equipment are developed. It is important to understand the requirements of the product and the requirements of all stakeholders like the Client, the Authorities, etc., for quick execution of conceptual design.

At the same time, alternative variants of a project may be developed. The conceptual design may include block flow charts, basic process flow charts and preliminary plant layouts. Major equipment is preliminarily specified during the conceptual design as well.

Basic engineering

Based on an agreed conceptual design, the basic design will be developed by IBBL. In this stage, the plant is engineered and already defined in detail to have the overall plant configuration ready.

Basic engineering includes preliminary process flow charts, layout of plant sections, section views, specification of single major equipment, etc. Of course, these documents are updated during the detail design, but the basic design already creates the general framework to build the project on.

In certain industries, the basic engineering, together with scheduling and cost estimation, is called Front End Engineering and Design (FEED).

Detail engineering

The detail design is for the execution phase. Every detail of the project is developed through drawings, descriptions and specifications. The detail engineering serves as basis for the execution drawings.

Within these three phases of design presented, additional steps might be added, for example a design stage for approval by Authorities or the preparation of execution drawings.