Industry-Specific Diagrams – Specifications, Use, and Context
Today’s modern companies providing goods and services in automotive, manufacturing, and gas & oil industries rely primarily on data. Their proper presentation is supported by up-to-date diagram solutions that best illustrate and moderate information resources. Therefore, see examples of custom industry-specific diagrams, built on the latest visual technologies, tailored to your needs to bring you the desired profits. Let’s start!
What industry-specific diagrams are, and why should you know them?
Long story short – the industry-specific diagrams are made to visualize the specific aspect of the system. It depends on if you’re interested in the time, location, or sequence of the information, processes, or parts to determine which approach will be perfect for you.
The industry-specific diagrams are found primarily in industries such as:
Let’s investigate the commonly used diagrams in the mentioned sectors.
P&ID for the Gas & Oil Industry
Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&ID) are widely used in the gas & oil industry, where engineers pay special attention to safe facilities operating in full compliance. No wonder, then, they need to employ knowledgeable and cost-saving solutions. A piping and instrumentation diagram represents a physical process flow’s piping and related components.
The industry-specific diagram – P&ID – plays the leading role in maintaining and modifying its graphically represented processes. For processing the facilities, it’s a graphic representation of:
- critical piping and instrument details,
- control and shutdown schemes,
- safety and regulatory requirements,
- basic operational information.
The Purpose of P&ID in Simulations
P&IDs are essential in the process of engineering as they show interconnectivity. This type of diagram is helpful in many ways. The engineer can evaluate the construction process and develop the guidelines or standards for facility operations. Thus, producing the documents explaining the process is much easier than without.
The P&ID is essential to designing the conceptual layout of a chemical or manufacturing plant, including the recommendations for cost estimates, equipment design, and pipe design. Moreover, the introduction of P&ID provides a common language for discussing plant operations, so each person is “on track” with the vocabulary used.
However, the P&ID is vital in another facility management operation, i.e., conducting simulations. For a more comprehensive view of this topic, you can go to the article titled “Simulations Management with Interactive Diagrams.”
Employing interactive P&ID in simulations, you focus mainly on visualizing the flow of a specific system. However, complex scenarios need simulations to support error-free maintenance at any stage. In this way, the user knows how to prevent and correct the processes and inspect the planned activities in the context of their correct functioning.
However, engineering maintenance is just a part of the importance of simulations. They are vital to examine resource utilization, efficiency, and costs thanks to constant work monitoring. Thus, the whole process can be optimized and analyzed to provide the necessary relationships between systems and components.
Specific Features Made with a Custom Framework for Simulations
For a process safety consultant, primarily for the gas & oil industry, creating and developing an appropriate solution based on industry-specific diagrams that enable avoiding costs related to damage to hardware resources, not to mention minimizing the risk of loss of health or life by employees working in the enterprise, has become the reason to use interactive diagrams in the simulation process.
The below example is a tool for creating the Piping & Instrumentation Diagram solution. It consists of the components that work closely with the diagram implemented in GoJS. These components allow changing the settings of the diagram itself and to set the property values of individual elements on the diagram.
Auto-completion mode
The auto-completion solution supports the actions once the user creates the network diagrams. It simply is a hint mode that enables the engineer to choose the suitable objects to build the network and route the piping. The rich palette is equipped with the necessary objects with implemented functionalities, so the user doesn’t have to know the specification of each element. The autocomplete function enables the snap to grid solution that ensures the readability of the diagram. In the case of exchanging objects in the network, the system itself recommends the available options. Thus, the whole process is bulletproof.
Mini-menu module
Performing simulations need special attention to the details. With a large canvas, it’s hard to grasp the specific diagram or its elements. However, the available mini menu module makes it easier to continue the scheme-building processes as it quickly assesses the most frequently used objects. You don’t have to search for the right element in the palette and remember its properties. While your network is being processed, you see the proper functioning parts highlighted in colors. The rest of the possible connections or fault operations is greyed out. Thus, the user knows precisely if the network is being constructed as desired.
Warning detection module
The visual system allows checking out the network performance and detecting possible errors. The interface is equipped with error signaling with three severity levels: concern, warning, and error. Thanks to this, it is possible to test failure scenarios and their potential consequences, e.g., network disconnection in an uncontrolled fire. The warning detection module supports preventing failures and excellent the network for future works.
Digital Twin module
Flows are an essential element of the simulation. The system presents in an animated and static form. It is possible to view the system from a high-level perspective, where vital objects are visible while insignificant ones are grayed out. Nodes with signaling are shown as adornments
Flow Charts for the Automotive Industry
A flow chart is a widely used diagram in visualizing a process, system, or computer algorithm. Most companies use flow charts in multiple fields to document, study, plan, improve and communicate complex processes in clear, easy-to-understand diagrams.
It’s primarily used in industrial, chemical, and process engineering to illustrate high-level processes, including critical plant processes. A flow chart is a graphical representation of the problem’s process, algorithm, or step-by-step solution.
With thousands of engineers on board, large automotive companies are looking for industry-specific diagrams to support teams in their work performance, preventing errors quicker, and thus lowering costs.
The below example of the solution based on industry-specific diagrams presents a visual tool to support existing PLM management in defining the product configuration. The bulletproof solution facilitates and simplifies the workflow. It supports better compliance verification. The tool enables better communication and makes error detection much more accessible.
The Purpose of Flow Charts
To understand the nature and role of the flow charts, you need to know the answer: “What is the most important part of a flow chart?”
First, readability is probably its most essential aspect. It aims to offer a visual description of a process to help us understand what is going on. Such diagrams enable:
- ordering and planning the process, including the essential steps and offering the bigger picture of the process,
- organizing the tasks chronologically and identifying them by type (process, decision, data, etc.)
- the precision of the action flow, i.e., the order of the particular steps, needed input and anticipating output.
The flow chart can help find less apparent process features that can be refined to improve efficiency, i.e., bottlenecks, flaws, and unnecessary steps.
The flow charts in the automotive industry enable several operations needed for speeding up the decision-making processes by simplifying the workflow.
The solutions based on flow charts in the automotive industry can become a part of an integrated and existing complex client’s PLM system. Such diagrams play the leading role in bettering communication and enabling quicker error detection.
Specific Features Made with a Custom Framework for a Product Configurator Tool
Flow charts in the automotive industry are significant in building a bulletproof solution that simplifies the workflow. The concept below represents the pre-designed project of the Product Builder web application. It aims to accelerate and structure the vehicles’ part construction process. The process occurs in the design office, so the work is divided into two separate teams, not only by the engineers.
The tool supports the creation of an action list and a Bill of Materials based on the decisions made. This allows users and administrators of the tool to keep track of changes, easily update it and create new products smoothly. It consists of the following features.
Decision flow diagrams
The decision flow diagram is a diagram that helps decide between alternative courses of action that will lead to and affect a business decision.
The diagram can consist of a subdivision to demonstrate sequential steps. This implementation enables precise information exchange via comprehensive report creators. Additionally, the user can benefit from the Action List, which facilitates adding topics to clarify before ending up in Quality Assurance. The app doesn’t define products. However, it helps build paths that will allow you to craft any product. You can handle several hundred to several thousand nodes containing mounting elements and specifications data.
Action lists / administrator mode
The automotive industry strongly relies on data exchange. Thus, the precise information exchange is being performed via comprehensive report creators. The Action List enables adding topics to clarify before they end up in Quality Assurance. All that boosts the tool to a new level of excellence.
Bill of materials
Decision diagrams make it possible to break down the components. They fulfill the essential task of transferring business and sales knowledge to engineers who, in turn, know product details. Thanks to selections, colors, and action locks, a fully interactive flow diagram facilitates reading the decision order.
Additionally, for a smooth tool’s performance, we implement extra advanced features such as:
- Breadcrumb – it gives insight into the various layers of the diagram and helps to find connections. A feature deals with connectionless processes that are independent or linear.
- Decision filling – the interactive flow diagram supports status counting. It reflects the color of nodes and arrows. Applying the appropriate conditions affects the coloring of the paths.
- Alter – restore functionality / response in the decision diagram
- Product development phases – a function that consists of making some choices and creating decisions at individual stages of project development based on PLM
- Automation of activities – reusable use of nodes causes some actions to be automatically added or performed in other project parts, thus eliminating errors.
- Sub flow – dividing a task and importing ready elements if they are repetitive. It results in reusing the decisions made.
- Revisions – the administrator has the right to update the templates automatically in case of production changes.
- Adding an action – the user can automatically add actions that are a comment or explanation of why something is done the way it is. The automated adding leads to copying the same action in other parts of the same project.
- BoM tree structure – the administrator can define the elements of the car part and states the relationships between data concerning these parts
Flow Charts in Process Automation
Another example of a manufacturing industry flow chart is used to digitize the processes.
Automation and digitization of processes in a production company intend to induce faster and more effective operations while eliminating errors during the production process. As part of introducing such activities, both operators and production managers fully understand the progress and issue monitoring tasks.
The following features are based on industry-specific diagrams made for the production process allowing for quick and effective maintenance and adaptation of requirements to new products.
Manual Flow Builder Module
An interactive dashboard equipped with custom functionalities to create and reuse the process supports proper flow management and task automation. It transfers selected actions to the production line employees, turning them into the process co-creators.
Check and Plan Module
The production planning and validation module allows the user to monitor the process’ progress. The admin observes the task’s progression, assigns roles and tasks, dives into subtasks and projects, and plans future work.
Process Flow Diagrams in Smart Manufacturing
Industry 4.0 envisages a good deal of modernization in today’s production companies and imposes new roles on managers. It is not only about estimating production costs and time, but also about improving IoT-supported processes. That’s why it’s worth using the dedicated tool based on industry-specific diagrams to support the building up of the production line, collecting live data from IoT sensors, which are then used to estimate the quality improvements of the entire line. You can deepen your knowledge of that by reaching the article “Smart applications for factory management.”
The Purpose of a Process Flow Diagram
A Process Flow Diagram (PFD) shows the relationships between components at an industrial plant. With the PFD, you can document, improve or model a process.
The Process Flow Diagram has multiple purposes:
- To document a process for better understanding, quality control, and training of employees.
- To standardize a process for optimal efficiency and repeatability.
- To boost a process for efficiency and improvement.
- To model a better process or create a brand-new strategy.
- To enable communication and collaboration between users and other diagrams used in the organization.
Specific Features Made with a Custom Framework for Intelligent Manufacturing
Speaking of intelligent manufacturing, it’s common to use process flow diagrams, especially in modern organizations relying on tomorrow’s technology. Look at the features that enable intuitive process flow management, visual modeling of processes, and IoT integrations.
Customized plant builder
The main dashboard showcases the interactive palette of IoT sensors and nodes placed on the production line. Using the drag-and-drop option, the user places the objects on the line to check the production status in real-time. Sensors placed on machines collect data that are then used to create reports.
Customizing widgets and dashboards
The user decides on the tool’s look and resources. The tool’s welcome panel allows configuring various parameters such as location, sensor range, data type, or data representation. The user also gets familiar with diagrams for presenting the transferred data via sensors.
Alerting and predictions in process management
The existing hardware or IoT sensors deliver the data. The app’s interactive dashboard informs about any alerts and notifications in real-time so that they can be addressed quickly and prevent further issues. The user can predict any potential faults and optimize asset usage to prepare production output.
Real-time data monitoring
The functionality supports real-time data monitoring when using back-end IoT solutions. All gathered data is presented in the form of interactive diagrams. The user is immediately alerted to occurring issues so that it can take ad hoc preventive actions.
Data Management Diagrams for Data Lineage
As data-related demands increase within enterprises, the data landscape becomes more complex and distributed, pushing organizations to shift their data management practices from managing data to managing metadata.
Workflows, or flow charts, for master data management, portray the specific activities or work steps required to perform the various processes related to data management. There are multiple aspects important to maintaining data quality and structure within the organization. The data management diagrams’ role is to ensure data quality and data governance throughout the organization.
The Purpose of the Data Management Diagram
It might be tricky to visualize the flow of master data work activities or organizational data itself. The data management diagrams, such as flow charts, can help build the concept of master data work activities or processes.
Creating sound data governance procedures can give the organizations advantages over their competitors by monitoring those procedures through flow charts and periodic data review audits.
In the Data Governance companies, there are several ways to bulletproof the processes and ensure the correct data flow. These are:
- Standard Training on Data Governance Policies for Employees
Creating the formal enterprise-wide data governance training procedures, developed with flow charts, allows employees to maintain high-quality data throughout the data lifecycle.
- Identify Root Causes of Recurring Data Record Errors
Flow charts enable detecting the causes of repetitive and problematic errors within the organization’s database. With solid data management diagrams, you can track the data flow throughout the organization’s data warehouse to determine what part of the process is impacting data quality.
- Creating Formal Processes for Data Auditing and Reporting
Improving data management processes must be reviewed periodically to assess whether data governance policies and controls are being followed.
The above procedures are profound for Data Lineage and Data Governance practices. You can read more about Data Lineage in the article “What is Data Lineage and why it’s important in data management?”. For more insights on visualizing methods in Data Lineage, check out the blog post “How custom diagram visualizations support the data lineage in data warehouses.”
Specific Features Made with a Custom Framework for Data Lineage
For a leading Data Governance company, we provided a set of industry-specific diagrams supporting data management. Their purpose is to visualize the dependency between data collected in data catalogs.
Dependency diagram
The following diagram represents the visual presentation of data placed in various databases and data warehouses. Categorized with AI into data sets and presented visually in swim lanes. Each node comes with a collapsible property section. The mechanism is equipped with a detection algorithm to ensure proper re-layout in any view.
Inheritance diagram
This diagram represents the data organization and relationships with various databases and data warehouses. Each parent node can lead to many other nodes and vice versa. The advanced layout is based on a custom diagram layout.
Knowledge graph
This view presents an indefinitely expanded diagram built with GraphQL API. Virtualization is activated with several thousand nodes, so there is no need to render everything visible on the screen. An applied minimap facilitates navigation.
Roll-up
The use of industry-specific diagrams is as wide as the requirements and needs. The whole diagramming portfolio enables the companies to search for the right solutions and implementations to boost the business by securing the processes and data. For more information on diagrams, check out the article on Interactive Diagrams.
Most industries rely on diagrams to visually represent the exact data that the users can operate in various ways. The above examples have been built with a customized approach tailored to the needs. However, Synergy Codes is ready to implement any solution that you require. Contact us to see if there’s a space for cooperation.
