Lots of pipe spool fabrication job is existed in oil & gas facilities fabrication, offshore module fabrication, power plant construction, nuclear power plant construction, or shipbuilding projects.
Conventional pipe spool fabrication is mostly done by manual. While it is hard to control the welding quality, due to it mainly depends on operator's skill, which cause high repair rate. The fabrication efficiency is also low.
Move most of pipe spool fabrication workload to a fixed workshop and upgrade it to automation mode can help fabricators solves above problems and better control fabrication quality.
Usually, an automatic pipe fabrication workshop consists of several areas, such as pipe cutting area, pipe end beveling area, pipe and fittings fitting up area, and pipe welding area. Except those, raw pipe storage area, pipe and fittings buffer area, finished spool storage area and manual repair area are also necessary to make each work step under control and whole production well organized and managed.
However Automatic fabrication is not enough, when there is a lot of piping job in a workshop, handling of pipes may affect production efficiency. So overhead cranes are utilized to handle raw pipes; conveyor systems are utilized to handle cut-off /beveled pipes; trolleys are utilized to handle processed pipes from one machine to another. Better handling of pipes can reduce material transferring time greatly. Most of handling pipe are done in ground level makes pipe handling safer.
Another factor that affects the whole production is waiting of pipes. Assuming a pipe fabrication workshop is enough in cutting, but inefficient in beveling, there will be many well cut-off pipes waiting for beveling. Therefore, pipe cutting, pipe end beveling, pipe fitting up and pipe welding, each step working efficiency should be balanced. Then there is no pipe waiting, whole workshop can be streamline in production. Thus the efficiency of whole workshop can be highly improved.