Hitachi Power Europe chooses Intergraph® SmartPlant® 3D to improve productivity and collaboration in future design projects

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Oct. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Hitachi Power Europe  has selected SmartPlant^® 3D for its future design and construction projects to further strengthen its excellent position in the global market through improved productivity and intelligent collaboration. The first projects to be delivered with the new solution are planned for autumn this year.

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As a market and technology leader in the energy sector, Hitachi Power Europe relies on innovative and integrated software to support its projects around the globe. After a thorough benchmark period, Hitachi Power Europe chose SmartPlant 3D as its design tool for future projects, which will start with a planned implementation of the integration platform SmartPlant Foundation. Hitachi Power Europe chose SmartPlant 3D to ensure enhanced collaboration, to increase productivity and to have a consistent impact through the whole plant life cycle. The improved collaboration with other Hitachi sites (like Babcock-Hitachi K.K.) was one of the key reasons for the company's decision.  

"After a preliminary selection process, two finalists for a pilot installation were selected and tested under identical conditions. The result of the user test, together with the evaluation of a predefined requirements matrix, showed a clear vote for SmartPlant 3D. In the long term, we expect to have a positive experience with Intergraph as a reliable partner," said Christoph Kastl, head of technical information technology at Hitachi Power Europe.

 "Hitachi is another important customer in the power industry that has decided to use SmartPlant 3D. The increasing number of customers who rely on Intergraph's design tools and information management solutions encourage us to keep working hard on delivering integrated solutions that have a purposeful impact in the whole life cycle of the plant," says Gerhard Sallinger, Intergraph Process, Power & Marine president.

SmartPlant 3D is the world's first and only next-generation 3D plant design solution, employing a breakthrough engineering approach that is focused on rules, relationships and automation. It is the most advanced and productive 3D plant design solution that effectively enables optimized design, increasing safety, quality, and productivity, while shortening project schedules. Companies using SmartPlant 3D typically report a 30 percent improvement in overall engineering design productivity.

Intergraph's SmartPlant Enterprise, the suite comprising Intergraph's pool of solutions, offers a powerful portfolio of industry-leading, best-in-class design and data management solutions, enabling companies in the process, power, and marine industries to capture integrated engineering knowledge at the enterprise level for the competitive advantage needed in today's and tomorrow's market. SmartPlant Enterprise's integrated suite of solutions enable proven productivity gains, improving engineering efficiency by up to 30 percent. This is why the majority of plants built worldwide are designed using Intergraph solutions.

The ARC Advisory Group, a leading industry analyst firm, ranked Intergraph as the No. 1 overall worldwide provider of engineering design solutions for industry according to its "Engineering Design Tools for Industry and Infrastructure Worldwide Outlook Market Analysis and Forecast Through 2016."

About Hitachi Power Europe
Hitachi Power Europe GmbH (HPE), a subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., designs and constructs fossil-fired power plants. The plant constructor also supplies key components such as utility steam generators, environmental engineering equipment, turbines and pulverizers. Including subsidiaries, approx. 1,800 staff is on the company's payroll (as of April 2012).

As a market and technology leader - in utility steam generators, for instance - HPE relies on modern, ecologically sound and economic plants. In this way, the company - with its head offices in Duisburg - plays a prime role in securing the supply of electricity on the markets in question.

As an energy plant constructor, Hitachi Power Europe GmbH benefits both from the growing demand for electricity and the boom in power plant construction across the world. HPE is playing a major role here in the modernization of the European power generation system. Within the Hitachi Group, which has revenues of approx. US$ 112.2 billion and a 360,000 workforce, HPE is responsible for the markets in Europe, the CIS states, Africa and India. www.hitachi-power.com  

About Intergraph
Intergraph is the leading global provider of engineering and geospatial software that enables customers to visualize complex data. Businesses and governments in more than 60 countries rely on Intergraph's industry-specific software to organize vast amounts of data to make processes and infrastructure better, safer and smarter. The company's software and services empower customers to build and operate more efficient plants and ships, create intelligent maps, and protect critical infrastructure and millions of people around the world.

Intergraph operates through two divisions: Process, Power & Marine (PP&M) and Security, Government & Infrastructure (SG&I).  Intergraph PP&M provides enterprise engineering software for the design, construction, operation and data management of plants, ships and offshore facilities. Intergraph SG&I provides geospatially powered solutions, including ERDAS technologies, to the public safety and security, defense and intelligence, government, transportation, photogrammetry, and utilities and communications industries. Intergraph Government Solutions (IGS) is an independent subsidiary for SG&I's U.S. federal business.

Intergraph is part of Hexagon (Nordic exchange: HEXA B; www.hexagon.com), a leading global provider of design, measurement, and visualization technologies that enable customers to design, measure and position objects, and process and present data.

For more information, visit www.intergraph.com.

© 2012 Intergraph Corporation. All rights reserved. Intergraph is part of Hexagon. Intergraph and the Intergraph logo are registered trademarks of Intergraph Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Intergraph