Flange FLOCS

[cjabhijit]

Hello guys,

Have anybody heard of Flange FLOCS? These days I am hearing a lot about it on my current assignment.
We are in detail design phase of the (revamp) project for a refinery & I am not able to understand what are these FLOCS?

Do anybody have experience with these? What I heard about it is, it's something to do with the bolt tension.

Curious if somebody can put some light on this issue...

Have a nice weekend.

Thanks & Regards,
Abhijit

 

[pennpiper]

cjabhijit,
Are you talking about "FAST LUBE OIL CHANGING SYSTEMS" (FLOCS)?

If so then try here:

http://www.eaton.com/Eaton/ProductsServices/Hydraulics/Connectors/PCT_256263

Sometimes its possible to do all the right things and still get bad results

 

[cjabhijit]

Hi penpiper,

Thanks for the information however, I do not think this is what I am looking for.
Wish me luck...


Thanks & Regards,
Abhijit

 

[XL83NL]

Better tell us what FLOC means, unless this is a game who does the funniest guess?

 

[MJCronin]

This ???

http://www.ecologix.com/english/products2.html

A little context certainly would help here .....

Are you located in a water treatment plant, refinery, nuclear power plant or a middle school basement ???

What kind of projects are you doing ????

MJCronin
Sr. Process Engineer

 

[Gator]

Flange Operating Conditions? Or a poor translation of an acronym into English?

 

[LittleInch]

Abhijit, just ask the next person who uses it. I ask all the time when I don't know an acronym or abbreviation.

Is it not written in a report somewhere?

If you're a junior engineer, it's not expected you know all the terms so maybe need to find a helpful more experienced engineer and ask them in a quiet moment.

If the posters here don't know what it is then it's something very specific to your location or company.

Then come back and tell us because it doesn't make any sense at the meoment

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[cjabhijit]

Dear All,

Thanks for your time & responses.

I have further digged into it to as mentioned by LittleInch above & found following.

[highlight #FCE94F]
"UNDERSTANDING
Functional location
A functional location (abbreviated FLOC) indicates the name and address of a piece of equipment
(Eg pump, vessel, column, tank) or of a pipeline or building. The data provided in SAP to a
FLOC are assigned relate to the process and not to the equipment itself. So
For example, at the FLOC of a pump, we find a working pressure and a working temperature. A
FLOC thus says something about the location and function of the device in the process. "[/highlight]

It seems to me that, it is very specific terminology for the projects/client I am working with....also it seems to me that it is not an item/equipment/instrument but it is an the way of identifying a location i.e. "Functional Location (FLOC).



Thanks & Regards,
Abhijit

 

[Gator]

If I ask what a SAP is, will there be another acronym in the explanation?

 

[Ehzin]

The concept of functional locations may not be specific to SAP but it is in the software. I suppose I would describe SAP as a data management system and I think it's been out for quite a while. I believe it's pretty widespread program throughout chemical plants and probably many other industries.

Regarding flange FLOCs or flange functional locations, this is possibly being used because your facility or the project's facility does not assign unique equipment tag numbers to each flange. Instead they've using functional locations in a similar fashion to track them. Another use I can imagine, although there's a lot of possibilities, would be to build functional locations based on a blind list. They could develop a single functional location to a isolate a piece of equipment or system, develop work orders in SAP for each flange location to isolate that system, and be able to track that work in SAP to know when the system is blinded in its entirety.

Functional locations are part of a hierarchy system in SAP. Not sure how they are directly relevant to bolt tension although it could be handled in how they've set up their SAP system or how it's managed.

Thanks,
Ehzin

 

[Gator]

Interesting - I was unaware that SAP (the software company) was at all popular in engineering projects.

 

[Ehzin]

Well, it may not be completely relevant for a large engineering firm but it may be included as requested by the end user.

Thanks,
Ehzin

 

[cjabhijit]

Hi Ehzin,

Thanks for your valuable & very relevant inputs on this matter.

Yes, now I have clarified it is nothing to do with the bolt tensions but with the locations & yes SAP (software) has a role to play.


Thanks & Regards,
Abhijit

 

[Gator]

So, 'FLOCS' is a table name in a database within SAP. Since it was no doubt named by a programmer there's no surprise that nobody here had heard of it. I wonder if, say, PDMS or SP3D has a similar concept but calls it something different.

 

[Ehzin]

Well to your comment regarding "FLOCS", Gator, I've never personally heard the acronym FLOCs before. The term seems specific to the facility OP is working that job for. Personally I've seen Functional Locations as a means to set up a logical hierarchy of a plant.

An example tier'ing system is as follows:
Unit -> ISBL vs OSBL (Inside or Outside Battery Limits) -> Area -> Equipment Skid

Usually with the previous tier carrying thru, such as 1001-ISBL-A100-S1000 being a unique functional location, which would be unit 1001, ISBL, Area 100, Skid 1000

And then within the above tier'ing system SAP equipment tags are entered depending on which tier is the most appropriate. An SAP equipment number may be entered for the entire unit under the unit level to cover unit-wide costs or work orders while an equipment number for a single pump may be organized under the relevant area. Essentially, tt provides some logical structuring otherwise it'd be a single column list of the following:

10000001 - Pump A
10000002 - Pump B
10000003 - Vessel A...

I could elaborate further but I'll leave that question up to Abhijit. It's a bit odd to explain in a single block of text.

Thanks,
Ehzin