Plant Documentation & Turnaround Support for Petrochemical & Heavy Industry
Meticulous asset documentation and inspection for refineries and heavy industrial facilities. Intrinsically safe workflows, turnaround support, clash detection.
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Send us the building location, approximate square footage and required deliverables. We'll review the scope and get back to you. Send us the building location, approximate square footage and required deliverables. We'll review the scope and get back to you.
Refineries and heavy industrial plants run on tight turnaround windows, dense piping networks and safety protocols that most survey work never has to account for. Documenting a process facility means working inside classified areas, coordinating around active production, and delivering data precise enough to feed directly into clash detection and engineering design.
DCMS supports petrochemical and heavy industry clients with intrinsically safe scanning workflows, piping and structural clash detection, tank inspection support, and plant-wide digital twins that give facilities engineering teams a living record of a site that changes constantly.
This page covers how we scope and run plant documentation projects, what turnaround support looks like, and how piping clash detection reduces rework on brownfield engineering projects.
Scanning inside classified and process areas
Refinery and chemical plant environments often require intrinsically safe equipment and specific site safety orientation before any crew can enter a classified area. We plan every plant engagement around the site's own safety and permitting process, and our crews complete site-specific safety training before mobilization.
Scan planning accounts for confined spaces, elevated platforms and process equipment that cannot be approached without a permit, so the capture plan is built around what is actually accessible on any given day.
- Site-specific safety orientation and permit-to-work coordination before mobilization
- Intrinsically safe or purged equipment used in classified areas where required
- Capture planning built around live process schedules and confined-space access limits
Piping and structural clash detection
Brownfield engineering projects, where new piping or equipment has to route through an existing plant, are where clash detection earns its cost fastest. A design based on incomplete as-built data routinely discovers conflicts during construction, when a fix costs far more than catching it on paper.
We scan the existing piping racks, structural steel and equipment, then run clash detection against the proposed design model before fabrication starts, flagging conflicts while they are still a drawing revision instead of a field rework.
Turnaround support and rapid documentation windows
Plant turnarounds compress months of otherwise-inaccessible work into a short shutdown window, and documentation needs during a turnaround are urgent and time-boxed. We staff crews specifically for turnaround schedules, capturing equipment internals, piping tie-ins and structural conditions while systems are open, so engineering teams have accurate data before the unit comes back online.
Tank inspection and calibration support
Storage tank inspections combine structural condition assessment with volumetric calibration, both of which benefit from LiDAR's ability to capture full tank geometry without physical contact. We support tank inspection programs with internal and external scans that feed into calibration tables and structural condition reports.
Plant-wide digital twins for facilities engineering
A process facility changes constantly, through turnarounds, capital projects and unplanned maintenance, and keeping a single accurate model of the plant is a persistent challenge for facilities engineering teams. We build plant-wide digital twins that get updated after major project work, giving engineering, maintenance and safety teams one current model to plan against instead of a patchwork of drawings from different eras.
Typical scope & deliverables
What a standard engagement in this industry usually includes.
| Deliverable | Typical use | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Piping and equipment point cloud | Clash detection, brownfield design | E57 / RCP |
| Clash detection report | Pre-fabrication conflict resolution | PDF report + model overlay |
| Turnaround documentation package | Shutdown-window engineering data | DWG / RVT |
| Tank inspection scan | Structural condition and calibration support | PDF report + point cloud |
| Plant-wide digital twin | Ongoing facilities engineering | Cloud-hosted model |
| Structural steel as-built | Capital project design basis | RVT / IFC |
What goes wrong without accurate as-builts
In process facilities, undocumented as-built conditions do not just cause budget overruns, they create safety and schedule risk on projects that already operate under tight turnaround windows and strict regulatory oversight.
A piping clash discovered in the field during a turnaround can extend a shutdown by days, at a direct cost far higher than the survey that would have caught it in advance.
- ▸Field clashes discovered during construction or turnaround, extending shutdown duration
- ▸Fabrication rework when new piping or steel does not fit existing plant geometry
- ▸Extended turnaround windows when documentation is captured too late to inform planning
- ▸Safety incidents when structural or piping condition data used for planning is out of date
- ▸Inconsistent plant records across engineering, maintenance and safety teams working from different drawing sets
- ▸Site safety requirements and intrinsically safe equipment needs for classified areas
- ▸Access complexity, including confined spaces, elevated platforms and process shutdown coordination
- ▸Piping and structural density requiring detailed clash detection modelling
- ▸Turnaround scheduling, since compressed shutdown windows require dedicated crew staffing
- ▸Tank count and inspection scope for calibration or structural condition work
- ▸Scale of the plant-wide digital twin and update frequency required
Reference ranges: scan-to-DWG $0.35–$0.85/sq ft, LOD 300 Revit $0.90–$1.80/sq ft, digital twin build $1.50–$4.00/sq ft. Final pricing depends on the drivers above.
- 01Site safety orientation and permit-to-work coordination before any crew mobilizes
- 02Capture planning around live process schedules, confined spaces and access permits
- 03LiDAR capture using intrinsically safe or purged equipment where required
- 04Registration and QC against plant control network
- 05Clash detection modelling or as-built drafting depending on scope
- 06Delivery aligned to the plant's engineering and maintenance workflow
Related services and service areas
These pages cover the delivery details and Montréal-area logistics behind this industry work.
Frequently asked questions
Can you scan inside a classified process area?+
Yes, with the appropriate intrinsically safe or purged equipment and after completing the site's safety orientation and permit-to-work process.
How does piping clash detection work?+
We scan the existing plant, then run the design model against the captured point cloud to flag conflicts before fabrication, rather than discovering them during construction.
Can you support a plant turnaround on a compressed schedule?+
Yes. We staff dedicated crews for turnaround windows and prioritize capture of equipment internals and tie-ins that are only accessible while systems are open.
Do you support tank inspection and calibration?+
Yes. We scan tank interiors and exteriors to feed into calibration tables and structural condition reports.
How do you keep a plant-wide digital twin current?+
We update the twin after major project work or turnarounds, keeping a single current model rather than letting drawing sets fragment across teams.
Do your crews carry industrial site safety certifications?+
Yes. Crews complete site-specific orientation for every plant, and hold the general industrial safety training required for refinery and chemical plant access.
Get a Quote for Your Project
Send us the building location, approximate square footage and required deliverables. We'll review the scope and get back to you. Send us the building location, approximate square footage and required deliverables. We'll review the scope and get back to you.