Michigan-based Andy J. Egan Co., Inc., relies on MSUITE software to improve their fabrication operations, which has enabled the company to grow exponentially as it carves out a niche in the energy industry. For example, Egan credits MSUITE with helping them shave three weeks off a major power utility upgrade project.
Energy Industry Insiders
In the Midwest, and specifically in Michigan, a few main utility contractors have aggressive commitments to going coal-free by 2025. Egan performs a lot of work for various clients, including small municipalities and towns, seeking to make the transition to alternative energy sources. Pat Heffron, Egan’s director of fabrication, explained, “They’re shutting off their coal burners and moving over to the combined cycle or a Phase Out Peaker project.” (Phase Out Peakers is a move to replace peaker power plants with clean energy alternatives.) Egan has worked with clients to fabricate and install new piping and equipment.
Industrial fabrication involves very high quality and technical standards, so there is a smaller labor force and fewer companies that can handle the technical requirements. For contractors like Egan, these projects pose a high risk but can also bring high reward if the project goes well.
“Documentation, quality control, and certifications of the welders are critical,” said Heffron. “The difference is in material and metals, such as chrome, and working on projects like pressure vessels. Egan is an ASME code shop, so they build a fair amount of pressure vessels and stamp them for both internal and external projects within the industrial sector.”
Substantial Time Savings
For a major utility company project, Egan replaced significant equipment and associated piping at a compressor station. The $8.2 million project required installation of 6,200 linear feet of piping along routes with 14 different tie-in points.
Without a detailed 3D model, prefabrication would have been impossible, and the crew would have constructed everything in the field. Egan gathered data using laser scanning and converted it into a precise 3D model using MSUITE tools. As result, Egan was able to install 80-foot towers without any connected piping, saving three weeks on the compressed project schedule. Field welds were kept to a minimum, and because so much of the documentation took place in the fabrication shop, paperwork required for quality control was also minimized for the field crew.
Read more about Egan’s utility company project here.
Improving Efficiency
Heffron’s team at Egan used to spend countless hours doing manual inventory to get status updates. They could easily keep track of what had not started production and what was complete, but they had trouble keeping on top of which products were in which stage of production. As a result, consistent and accurate production updates were almost impossible, making forecasting and scheduling extremely difficult. “MSUITE FAB has solved this one for us,” said Heffron. “Knowing where a specific spool or workpiece was physically in the process at any given time” has been a significant factor in Egan’s success.
MSUITE helped Egan standardize workflows to improve throughput, efficiency, and productivity and achieve consistency in fabrication processes. Egan eliminated the master production spreadsheet that required hours of daily updates. They also got rid of paper and manual activity tracking. With MSUITE, Egan also improved quality control and tracking for large industrial clients.
When Egan first encountered MSUITE, said Heffron, “We were impressed by MSUITE being 100-percent dedicated to mechanical contractors, and that was a key decision factor in moving forward.” With MSUITE BIM, Egan is taking advantage of the MSUITE platform to make the transition from CAD MEP to Revit.
Watch how Egan’s teams collaborate to help construct a 250-megawatt combined cycle power plant in Lansing, MI.
Overcoming Apprehension
Once Egan decided to implement MSUITE, leadership had some apprehension about using it throughout the fabrication facility. “We had to be cautious, because we had glaring needs for improvement and employees that were averse to using technology in the fabrication shop,” said Heffron. “Our guys got into the trades because they like building stuff, not using software, but MSUITE’s focus on the mechanical trade and being onsite for training is a big reason for overcoming this culture shock.”
The MSUITE team configured the system correctly to Egan’s exact specifications and mirrored Egan’s process requirements. Holding the team of 30 to 50 employees to that process removed the risk that they might take shortcuts, which could create larger issues.
MSUITE helped Egan fabricate more than 2,500 carbon steel, coated spools for a dry ash system at the largest coal-fired plant in the western hemisphere. The spools were shipped to the project jobsite and installed with a 99.4-percent accuracy rate.
See photos from the coal plant project.
For more information, visit www.Msuite.com.
