Using 3D to expand piping, heat exchange services

Heatec JieTong is a prominent provider of piping and heat exchange services for the marine and oil and gas industries. The company counts numerous major shipyards, including Jurong Shipyard Pte Ltd, Sembawang Shipyard Pte Ltd, Keppel Shipyard Ltd and Singapore Technologies Marine Ltd as its clients, as well as some of the world’s largest shipping services, such as Neptune Orient Lines Ltd, Teekay Shipping and ExxonMobil Singapore.

Dealing with the limitations of 2D

Heatec JieTong prides itself on providing high-quality services with an emphasis on timely delivery.This is why the company was able to achieve ISO 9001:2000 certification, the highest international quality standards in the field of piping structure fabrication and heat exchanger manufacturing and repair. For those with knowledge of this industry, even more impressively, Heatec JieTong met these demanding standards in its second year of operation.To retain its quality promise, Heatec JieTong realised that it needed to address several issues that were slowing its manufacturing process. Among the most critical, the company was using a 2D drawing package to design its systems. The company’s project managers noted that the 2D approach was especially cumbersome in responding to tight deadlines. As a result of using a 2D, repeated corrections also slowed the manufacturing process and increased costs, with human errors and fabrication problems literally causing the company to discard several systems after manufacture. Accuracy was also an issue with 2D development, since the company’s engineering teams often found it hard to mark out the precise bolt locations when designing heat exchangers and air coolers.

Why Solid Edge

To improve its design approach, to keep up in the demanding piping and heat exchange services industry and to continue its global expansion, Heatec JieTong realised that it needed a more efficient product development process. In addition, it wanted a high-value solution. With this in mind, the company management turned to Siemens PLM Software’s Solid Edge? software. Management knew that Solid Edge was an industry leading mechanical design system, with exceptional tools for creating and managing 3D digital prototypes. And the company’s system designers understood that Solid Edge provided a fully integrated design management environment that would enable them to create error-free, accurate designs for manufacturing.Heatec JieTong’s decision makers were right.With the implementation of Solid Edge, Heatec JieTong’s design teams adopted best-in-class 3D drafting and visualisation, which produced immediate results. For the first time, designers found it easier to keep up with engineering changes. Just as importantly, design errors were essentially eliminated, which resulted in better quality bills of material. Similarly, the design teams found it was easier to edit and organise their designs. The company’s designers also were able to tightly track their edits and audit the necessary changes.

Faster turnaround, 80% fewer errors, increased profitability

“With Solid Edge, the company has achieved a marked competitive edge and growing revenues,” says Jenson Soon, who manages Engineering and Quality Assurance at Heatec JieTong. “Specifically, since the implementation of Solid Edge, we have realised a much smoother and efficient design process. This is a direct result of reducing non-conformance errors by 80 percent. Most importantly, with significantly reduced design errors and an accelerated process, we have increased profitability.” He explains, “The software is well-suited to our specific piping and heat exchanger design needs. That has enabled us to achieve efficiencies well above and beyond what we origiMężczyźni