West Process Visualization
Drawings operators can actually read — by Jim West
35 years operating cryogenic plants. Air separation, syngas, and helium plants — all types, with cryogenics as my specialty.
The problem
A full P&ID set tells an engineer everything and an operator very little. Spread across dozens of sheets, with no sense of how one stream becomes the next, it leaves operators struggling to visualize what’s happening inside the coldbox — exactly where they need to understand it most.
These drawings are made the other way around: from the operator’s seat, on one page, so the whole plant — and the path through it — can be seen at a glance.
What I deliver
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Single-page plant overviews
The whole plant on one sheet, drawn so an operator can follow every system from end to end without flipping pages.
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Training sheets
Temperatures, stream compositions, and reference tables right on the drawing — the numbers an operator needs, where they need them.
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Animated flow-path trainers
GIFs that trace each system through the plant, step by step, for PowerPoint and training decks. The movement is what makes it click.
Color-coded to your specifications. Drawings can be color-coded to the client’s own specifications, so the streams on the sheet match the way your plant already talks about them.
One end of the plant, or the whole plant
- Inside the Coldbox — columns, exchangers, and expanders drawn so operators can see what’s happening in the box.
- The Warm End — compressor trains, coolers, surge tanks, and air systems mapped end to end.
- The Whole Plant — warm meets cold on a single page.
Order just the end that’s giving you trouble, or the whole plant.
Examples
Watch the drawings below move — then tap any drawing to enlarge it.
Portfolio examples shown with client names and tag numbers intact for illustration; customer versions are stripped and anonymized.
Track record
A plant manager at another site asked for me by name to make an operator-clarity drawing. I worked remotely, from the P&ID and the heat & material balance sheets — and the operators loved the result.
— Jim West
At an older reversing-exchanger ASU plant supplying oxygen for wastewater treatment, I cut the derime, dry-out, and restart cycle from ten days to five — because it was the right thing for the plant, even though it cost me.
— Jim West
How it works
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Send the P&ID
Send your P&ID set — plus heat & material sheets if you have them.
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Jim draws it remotely
The drawing is built off-site, from your documents, with questions answered by phone or email as they come up.
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The finished drawing comes back
A clean, single-page overview, training sheet, or animated trainer — ready to hang in the control room or drop into a training deck.
No site visit needed as the default. The work is done remotely from the documents you already have.
Contact
West Process Visualization
Jim West
Prairieville, Louisiana
- Available for on-site work.
- References from plant staff are available on request.
