New at PipingDesign.com: 22 November 2000

<a href="http://www.pipingdesign.com/design.html">http://www.pipingdesign.com/design.html</a> Improving Piping Design, Fabrication and Installation National Institute of Standards and Technology

<<Industry studies show that the piping delivery process is often one of the most inefficient of all construction activities. In a CII study
(Ref: "Costs of Quality Deviations in Design and Construction"), the
average amount of rework on piping systems for industrial projects exceeds 3% of the total installed cost or close to $1 billion per year
(industrial projects in 1997 = $32.4 billion). This is a conservative
estimate of the rework cost because many piping corrections made during construction were not reported and the estimate did not include the impact on the rest of the project, although piping installation is almost always on the critical path of industrial projects.

Beyond documenting procedures for reducing potential rework costs, this project will investigate improvements in the fabrication, delivery and installation of piping systems. The primary use of CADD for piping fabrication is still focussed on replicating the drafting of isometric drawings and spool drawings to illustrate the configuration, shapes and connections of piping components. Large savings in labor, time and errors are possible by reducing the need for the piping engineer to develop intermediate isometric drawings for the piping fabricator. Rather, this project will develop a piping fabrication protocol for conveying the piping 3D design information directly to the piping fabricator for automated pipe spool definition and materials management. This protocol will also be useful for conveying spool and installation information to the project information systems and back to the piping engineer, when necessary. PlantSTEP (U.S. industrial consortium), PIEBASE (Process Industry Executive for achieving Business Advantage using Standards for data Exchange) and the CII Research Team 152 (3D CADD in the Fully Integrated and Automated Project Process) identified piping fabrication and installation as construction tasks which could be improved with the reliable exchange of 3D piping model information.>> Received on Wed Nov 22 20:13:00 2000