Bentley and Alias Integrate Design, Fabrication, and Maintenance for Piping Systems.

HOUSTON -- ISOGEN Included in Bentley Piping Streamlines Designer Workflow and Connects Piping Fabrication and Maintenance Information to DigitalPlant

Bentley Systems, Incorporated and Alias, Ltd. announced that Bentley has licensed Alias' ISOGEN software for automated piping isometrics and will include it in Bentley Piping, the company's piping design software.

The agreement integrates plant piping design with the automatic generation of fabrication, construction, and inspection drawings in a single, licensable software product. No longer do piping designers have to deal with interrupted, error-prone workflows to generate or review drawings and instructions. In addition, because Bentley Piping is part of DigitalPlant, all piping information is managed as part of a plantwide information management solution.

"This agreement is about improving the productivity of piping designers and the efficiencies of plant operations," said Dr. Jeffrey Hollings, senior vice president of Bentley Plant. "Piping designers can now design, generate manufacturing instructions, and review using a single product in a simple workflow. And critical piping information and all its changes can now be connected to a plantwide information management solution."

He adds, "Embedding the de facto standard ISOGEN capability into Bentley Piping is part of our ongoing commitment to provide plant engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) firms and owner-operators the industry's most comprehensive plant portfolio."

The ISOGEN connection to DigitalPlant means the isometric drawings that are generated can be automatically registered, tracked, and managed alongside their originating 3D models. In addition, the detailed engineering data on the isometrics can be managed at a component level and linked to business and procurement systems.

About ISOGEN

ISOGEN is the de facto standard for high-quality, fully automated piping isometrics created from intelligent 3D piping models. The program has saved time and money for users on thousands of design projects through its flexibility and customization options. Plant piping designers worldwide rely on ISOGEN to quickly produce high-quality, deliverable piping isometric drawings from 3D engineering models, such as those created by the Bentley plant design systems, PlantSpace and AutoPLANT. For more on ISOGEN, visit www.alias.ltd.uk/products/isogen.htm.

About Bentley Piping

Bentley Piping is the 3D piping design solution for MicroStation (PlantSpace) or AutoCAD (AutoPLANT) projects. It has a spec-driven design approach ensuring compliance with applicable design criteria, a data-centric foundation ensuring correlation between the graphical and descriptive data in the model, and tools that automate routine work tasks while maintaining design consistency. A comprehensive set of industry standards and catalogs of components are also included.

As an added benefit, Bentley Piping is scalable - from single-user installations to large, multidiscipline distributed environments. Moreover, it has been proven on some of the world's largest projects. For more on Bentley Piping, visit www.bentley.com/en-US/Products/ Bentley+Piping/Overview.htm?market=Plant (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

About DigitalPlant

Bentley's DigitalPlant solution connects the silos of engineering information to each other and to plant enterprise resource systems. It includes an engineering information management backbone and comprehensive functions for connecting, managing, querying, visualizing, analyzing, and creating engineering information. DigitalPlant's benefits, including significant cost reduction and greater efficiencies, have been realized by some of the world's leading process industry companies, including BP, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Bayer, Alcan, Bechtel, Chantier Atlantic, EDF, Jacobs, KBR, M+W Zander, WGI, Foster Wheeler, BHP Billiton, Uhde, and ABB, just to name a few.

About Alias

Alias, a global leader in the automatic piping isometric generation, is based in the United Kingdom. Through a combination of internal product development and strategic partnering with other software developers, owner-operators, and EPCs, and feedback from end users, Alias can offer a comprehensive range of piping solutions across the entire plant lifecycle. Its fully integrated suite of piping software applications helps users design, document, fabricate, and maintain their piping systems. For more on Alias, visit www.alias.ltd.uk.

About Bentley

Bentley Systems, Incorporated provides software for the lifecycle of the world's infrastructure. The company's comprehensive portfolio for the building, plant, civil, and geospatial vertical markets spans architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) and operations. With 2004 revenues exceeding $300 million, Bentley is the leading provider of AEC software to the Engineering News-Record Design 500 and major owner-operators.

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Bentley, the "B" logo, DigitalPlant, MicroStation, Bentley Piping, PlantSpace, and AutoPLANT are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.