12

The Design Report

The design report contains all of the information about the design project in
consideration. A formal report is required from the design team at the completion
of its design work, while informal reports may be useful for internal use of the
design team during the evolution of the design project.
The design report documents the details of the designed process, projecting
its profitability, and making recommendation to invest or not in the process. The
report identifies the key assumptions in the design and their potential impact on
the performance of the process and its anticipated profitability.
The design team should view its design report as an opportunity to
showcase its most creative engineering efforts for management (Seider et al.,
1999).

I. REPORT ORGANIZATION

Typical reports are normally included the following sections:

Letter of transmittal: This letter, on professional letterhead, is normally
directed to the supervisor who requested that the design work be done.
Title page: In addition to the title the authors and their affiliations are listed,
as well as the publication date.
Table of contents: All sections of the report should be listed, including the
page numbers on which they begin. All pages in the report, without exception,
should be numbered.
Abstract: The abstract is a brief description, in one or two paragraphs, of
the design report, its key conclusions, special features, and assumptions. These
include projections of the economic measures of profitability and
recommendations to management.
Summary: The summary is probably the most important part of the report.
(Peters and Timmerhaus, 1991). Its purpose is to give the reader the entire contents
of the report in one or two pages. It covers all phases of the design project, but it
does not go into details on any particular phase. All statements must be concise
and give a minimum of the general qualitative information. The aim of the
summary is to present precise quantitative information and final conclusions with
no unnecessary details.

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Introduction: The introduction states clearly the objectives of the design

project. It also contains some or all of the followings: A description of the product
to be manufactured, the role of this product in the industry, and its significance in
national and international trade. A survey of the methods used in manufacturing
this product, including the process being described in this report, giving the raw
materials, the principal chemical or physical transformations, by-products, wastes.
An explanation of the choice of the production method, production capacity, plant
location etc.
Process description: This section provides a description of the proposed
process and explains the corresponding process flowsheet. It describes the
function of each important equipment item and discusses the reasons for each
particular choice.
Process flow sheet and material balances: The proposed flowsheet is
drawn. All of the process units are labeled and all of the steams are numbered. In
addition, the drawing should contain a material balance table, showing for each
numbered stream the flow rate, the composition, the temperature, the pressure, and
any other important properties.
Energy balance and utility requirements: This section discusses the
energy requirements of the process. All the heating, cooling, and power demands
should be identified, along with the method of satisfying these demands, that is the
description of the utilities system.
Unit descriptions and specification sheets: Every process unit in the
flowsheet is described in terms of its specifications, the design methodologies, the
data employed. The important approximations should be discussed, as well as the
resulting uncertainties. Specifications sheets are required to guide purchasing
agents in locating vendors of desired equipment, and to enable vendors to prepare
bids. These sheets provide the design specifications for each of the process units in
the process flowsheet, as referred to in the unit description.
Equipment cost and fixed-capital investment: A table is prepared,
containing the estimated purchased cost of every equipment item in the process
flowsheet, identified according to the label on the flowsheet. The sources of prices
should be identified. The fixed-capital investment is presented along with the
corresponding estimated method.
Operating cost: The requirements in raw materials, utilities, labor and other
are summarized in table format and the corresponding cost is estimated. The
working capital could also be estimated in this section.
Profitability analysis: Based on the results of fixed-capital investment and
the operating cost estimation, several profitability measures are calculated, e.g.,
the payback period, the return on investment, the net present value, etc. The
methods of estimation should be specified.
Sensitivity analysis: Uncertainty is a crucial characteristic of the design
process. It comes from the lack of technical information, or the fussy economic
environment. The design team expends considerable effort by locating data in the
literature or extract them from experimentation, if possible. In any case a
sensitivity analysis is useful to reveal the effect of the most uncertain magnitudes
on the crucial technical and economical results of the design process.
Important considerations: Any important for the process matter not
included in the other sections could be included in this section.
The Design Report 3

Conclusion and recommendations: The principal conclusions of the

design study should be presented, together with a the recommendations for
management.
Acknowledgments: Acknowledges important assistance of others who are
not listed as preparing the report, such as industrial consultants, equipment
vendors, librarians etc.
Nomenclature: All symbols used in the report are listed together with their
meaning and units.
Bibliography: All literature sources referred to in the report are presented.
Appendix: Material and energy balance calculations, together with the
equipment sizing calculations, that is the process mathematical model, must be
presented, so as to be able to check by any engineering supervisor. The data used
in calculations should be summarized, together with their source. Details on any
computer software, if used, should be also presented. A systematic presentation of
the process design model and the corresponding solution algorithms, proposed by
Maroulis and Saravacos (2003), is summarized in Section IV of this chapter.

II. A DESIGN REPORT TEMPLATE

III. GENERAL RULES AND RECOMMENTATIONS FOR PREPARATION

OF WRITTEN REPORTS

IV. A SYSTEMATIC PRESENTATION OF PROCESS DESIGN

ALGORITHMS

V. GUIDELINES FOR ORAL PRESENTATIONS

REFERENCES

Maroulis ZB, Saravacos GD, 2003. Food Process Design. Marcel Dekker, New
York.
Peters MS, Timmerhaus KD, 1991. Plant Design and Economics for Chemical
Engineers. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Seider WD, Seader JD, Lewin DR, 1999. Process Design Principles. John Wiley,
New York.