Three best-in-class marine engineering companies based in Asia and one of the most respected engineering companies in Brazil have earned the top prizes in the annual Golden Valve and Platinum Pipe Awards customer competitions sponsored by Intergraph®. The awards were announced here this week at Intergraph @ Hexagon 2011, the annual user conference for the Intergraph Process, Power & Marine division and other Hexagon businesses.

COSCO Shipyard Group and Keppel FELS tied for Best of Show in the Golden Valve Awards Competition. Both images were of semi-submersible drilling ships designed using Intergraph SmartMarine® 3D and rendered with Intergraph SmartPlant® Review. The Best of Show entries were submitted by Gu Xiaogang of COSCO Shipyard Group and the Keppel FELS team.

Samsung Heavy Industries (KOSPI:SHI), based in Korea, and Promon Engenharia of Brazil received first prize in the Platinum Pipe Awards Competition for most innovative automation ideas for SmartPlant and SmartMarine Enterprise solutions in the 3D and Engineering & Schematics categories, respectively. SHI’s winning 3D entry is based on a SmartMarine 3D rule that automatically arranges cable trays and places coaming arrangements. Promon captured the Engineering & Schematics automation prize by developing a utility to improve SmartPlant P&ID users’ productivity through property grid management.

Gerhard Sallinger, Intergraph Process, Power & Marine president, said: “The Golden Valve and Platinum Pipe competitions highlight the work of thousands of SmartPlant and SmartMarine Enterprise solution users around the world. It is important to note that a record two-thirds of the recipients used either SmartPlant 3D or SmartMarine 3D – our next-generation 3D design solutions.”