TPT January 2012

T echnology U pdate

Life cycle management for pipelines

PIPELINE construction is labour and cost intensive, but there are definitely possibilities for rationalisation. These are not only due to the installation of economical production machines; they are also a result of the optimal organisation of the value-added processes by the well-aimed application of intelligent software systems. Both disciplines must be seen together, however, if the greatest possible benefit is to be achieved. With pipe bending and pipe processing machines and system and software solutions, custom-made to meet the special demands in pipeline construction (eg in the shipbuilding and offshore industry or plant engineering), Tracto-Technik (TT) has solutions for these optimisation processes. With the modular-designed Pipefab production management software pack, TT provides a branch solution for pipeline constructionwith far-reachingCIMfunctionality, which integrates all areas of the life cycle of pipelines digitally – from engineering to material management and production to assembly. The basic idea behind the Pipefab development was to reproduce demands from the practice in efficient systems and link them to universal solutions. The establishment of a P&ID (piping and instrumentation diagram), pipeline plans and isometric pipeline drawings is part of the single construction and planning steps. These isometric drawings can easily be uploaded in Pipefab from the different 3D-CAD systems used for constructing pipeline systems via interfaces. It is also possible to generate isometric pipe drawings from the measured data of different kinds of 3D pipe measuring systems (eg measurement of defective pipes

Pipefab supports the entire lifecycle of pipes and pipeline systems, combining engineering and production technology

which are going to be replaced) or to generate them directly with the help of an isometric drawing module integrated in Pipefab. The isometric pipe drawings are stored in a central database, and they represent the basic data for production. Among others, the software draws up work plans and spools, takes over the calculation of production times and costs, performs storage management (including the functions of material requirement planning); it issues bending, sawing or flame cutting lists and provides CNC data for the available processing machines in production. The optimisation process starts with the pipe prototype held ready at the pipe inventory. The storage management module for the control of the pipe inventory, conveying system and sawing unit integrated in Pipefab also includes a blank optimisation function which can minimise the sawing waste and so optimise material consumption by calculating the delivery lengths and remaining pieces. An additional preview function for material requirements shows up possible shortage

in quantity and allows acquiring the necessary pipe material in good time. By combining single production units from the central Pipefab database, production orders (production lots) are generated. Tracto-Technik GmbH & Co KG – Germany Email: tubomat@tracto-technik.de Website: pipebending.tracto-technik.com

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All documents relevant for production can be taken from the isometric pipe drawing and its corresponding piece lists

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J anuary 2012

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