Starting with the initial meeting with the client, through fabrication and installation, all steps of the project are intertwined. The success of each stage hinges upon its predecessor. The process skid design phase of the project is one of those critical stages that has a trickle-down effect on the remainder of the project.
Designers play a pivotal role in overall project completion. A process skid designer will take a set of P&ID’s and equipment specifications and then create structural and piping designs. A finished product for a designer is the complete 3D drawing of the process system. An experienced designer can reduce the project timeline, knows industry standards, and can effectively complete a design given limited plant real estate.
It seems simple, but having an experienced designer that is proficient in different design programs reduces the time it takes to complete a design. The less experience the designer has, the longer it takes to efficiently navigate design programs.
One of the more challenging aspects of a designer’s job is the knowledge of industry standards and selecting the most appropriate process skid design constructability. For example, understanding industry piping standards can exponentially speed up the design phase of a project.
Experienced designers have seen more projects, more challenges, and more unique design scenarios which prepares them for the next challenging application that will undoubtedly come along. Modular process skids can be over 60 feet tall. How is a skid that large supposed to navigate turns in the installation path and fit into a building?
Sometimes the designer must get creative. Case-in-point: The process skid displayed in this image had to fit through a standard set of double doors, navigate three 90 degree turns, and pass under a row of pipe racks located only feet away from its final resting place.
Through a series of site visits the project manager and the lead CAD designer found that the best option to navigate the tight space constraints was to design two separate connectable process skids. The two process skids would work together as one in the plant, but be shipped and installed as separate pieces. The process skid design split the operational functions. Combined the two pieces performed the total operation, but could be separated into self-contained modules with minimal effort. The finished two-part skid was delivered and successfully installed.
EPIC designers have decades of experience and have “been through the gauntlet” of challenging project scenarios. Simply put, EPIC’s designers “Do It Better.” To learn more about EPIC’s engineering, process skid design, and manufacturing capabilities visit EPIC’s process skids design/build page.