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Put your project manager hats on and estimate the engineering hours required for the following project. This is based on a project I have nearly finished, so I will know the answer soon. I'd be interested in the groups estimates, and their method of determining those estimates. Project deliverables: 1) Detailed written description of the control system and how the equipment functions (70 pages). Includes detailed description of all OI screens and functions, detailed sequence of operation of each piece of equipment, and alarm descriptions. This document is the basis for PLC programming and is derived from the Process and Instrument Diagram (nine "D" size sheets) and a basic sequence of operation (about 20 A size sheets). most of this was written from scratch, perhaps 20% was taken from an existing document. Document delivered in Word97. 2) Operator interface programming (36 screens). Fifteen of the screens are for display, control, and tuning of PID loops. One screen for a loop that is not PID (mostly a feedforward type control). The rest of the screens are for control and display of the process equipment status (valves, pumps, mode), and control and display of the regeneration and neutralization systems. All screens drawn from scratch, although there are manay screens with chuncks that are similar and the loop screens are very similar to each other. 3) Detailed tag list for all screens (54 pages). used so customer can program his DCS system for remote viewing and control. includes description of each point, its PLC address, its tag name, and numeric ranges (e.g.-0-100 PSI). Document drawn up from scratch in Excel. 4) PLC programming. PLC is an AB SLC5/05. PLC has both local and remote I/O. Local I/O consists of (5) 8-channel analog input cards, (5) 4-channel analog output channels, (3) 16-point digital output cards, and (3) 16-point digital input cards. Remote I/O consists of (16) drops, all block I/O. About half the blocks are 16-point dgital output blocks, the reset are combination 8-in/8-out blocks. RSLogix500 software. All code written from scratch. BTW, I am not quite done with this part of the project yet and there are well over 1000 rungs of code already (think of this as a big hint). 5) Checkout of control system including debug of software components. Does not include point-to-point wiring out (this is by others). Does include software checkout of the entire system and functional test of all I/O and equipment located in the remote I/O enclosures and the main control enclosure. Does not include any calibration or functional check of field isntruments such as pressure xmtrs, but does include functional test of all solenoid valve operated on/off valves and control valves. Process description: 2000 gpm boiler makeup and 2000 gpm condensate polishing system consisting of (3) cation exchangers decarbonator (3) anion exchangers (5) mixed bed exchangers caustic regeneration system acid regeneration system (2) waste neutralization systems some misc stuff (15) PID loops (1) feedforward loop (22) pumps and blowers (approx. 100) on/off valves equipment is designed so that it can be run (selectively) fully automatic (no operator attention required at all), semiauto (some operator attention), or manually (even more operator attention). I'd be curious. Is this enough information for you to estimate the total hours required. If so please give us your best estimates for the project in two phases. Phase I: Deliverable items #1 through 4 Phase II: Deliverable item #5 If you need additional information to make a wise estimate, ask away. Lets see who can guess the closest to what it actually takes. I should be done with Phase I by Monday, so we will know the answer to that part of the problem soon.