Digitalization and digital transformation drive Industry 4.0. These trends aim to create smart engineering, construction and operations processes. However, fabrication is an important step often lost in this story as traditionally many processes are non-digital. To embrace the power of digitalization, fabrication needs to become digitally enabled to fit into the overall digital chain and connect engineering and construction.
In fabrication, several functions – such as engineering design, work preparation, material storage, work management and shop floor – must exchange information almost in real time.
Traditionally, work planners used Excel spreadsheets to make capacity planning and generate work lists for workshops on the shop floor. This work required a great deal of human effort and time spent on work preparation, when barely any digital link existed between the design and these spreadsheets.
Today, information can be digital and accessible across the entire company. Solutions like Octave OnSite Production (formerly Intergraph Smart Production powered by NESTIX) integrate the digital design data with all the functionality required for work preparation, material storage, work management and shop floor, which can lead to a significant reduction in time spent on work preparation.
Design-agnostic integration to any design system
Design systems such as Forte 3D (formerly Intergraph Smart 3D), OnSite Spool Design (formerly Intergraph Spoolgen), BricsCAD, Forte 3DWorx (formerly CADWorx), Aveva, Cadmatic, Dassault, ShipConstructor, Siemens and Tekla generate different formats such as DXF, GEN, DSTV, PCD, IFC to XML for steel structures design and IDF, PCF and FIX for piping design. Engineering designs can come from many different 2D and 3D design systems, and formats include DXF, GEN, DSTV, PCD, IFC to XML for steel structures design and IDF, PCF and FIX for piping design.
The digital formats contain different levels of intelligent information regarding assembly structures, plate parts, profile parts, structural panels and pipe spools, along with their dimensions and materials. Teams can use this data within OnSite Production . Depending on the level of intelligence provided in these formats, additional automation can improve efficiencies even further.
Project import
Through the Project Import web application, users can import engineering design from these different design systems. While importing the information from the design system, the solution checks and validates the data for correctness and completeness. For example, the solution verifies that all material articles are available and the specified macros are valid.
The system writes validation results to the Import log. It assigns each imported item an import status, such as Inserted, Updated, Deleted, Error, Warning or Finalized. When applicable, a feedback loop to the design solution gives the designer full transparency of the production process.
Summary
The intelligent, digital design integration speeds up work planning time remarkably. The system imports design data with just a few clicks, including automatic data checking and validation. When data validation completes, OnSite Production creates automatic work preparation for the imported data items, including work chain selection, workplace routing, work time estimation and capacity planning for the shop floor.
To learn more about OnSite Production, please contact us or visit our website.