Material selection diagram: contribution to engineering project quality in process industries

In recent years, the material selection diagram (MSD) is increasingly becoming one of the important engineering documents generated during development and execution of capital projects in the process industries. The intent of the paper is to provide a brief overview of the role of the MSD on such projects. The paper expands on the MSD development and its relation to other project documents and explores its effect on the project quality. Specific details are discussed on the material selection philosophy as well as corrosion engineering aspects of the selected equipment or equipment components in terms of the scope of information that usually finds its way onto the MSD drawing. Strategies to maintain information consistency between some of the project documents are discussed in greater detail. The paper concludes with an outline of MSD checklists that can contribute to improving client satisfaction, reducing work process cycle time, errors, waste and surprises.