Welding

Weldpac (Fit, weld, QC, stores, management) is a multidiscipline construction control and management system. Weldpac on Mossgass Onshore, by broad consensus, is estimated to have saved the contractor R15 million rand.

Fourty technical QC clerks at the previous boiler job were replaced by five.
Testing rates were down. QA acceptance high.

These savings are available to your company.

The administration and management of welding is time consuming, people and paper intensive but also information rich. Because it serves many disciplines it needs a wide range presentation.

Weldpac reduces copying, transcription, duplications and analysis spreadsheets. It reduces the possibility of many errors. Different disciplines update and independently share the benefit of each other’s updates – a very efficient process.

Most construction managers measure and cost piping jobs in of weld inches. Weldpac is the weld inches detective inspector for scope and progress.

“A general that knows where every enemy is will win.” Weldpac changes the way the job is managed for the better. Welpac prevents slippage of work (up to the end of the job) and massive rework because of gaps between weld completion and QC clearance. Documentation is printed with timely and accurate data.

As welding forms such a substantial part of the project it must be managed to meet the same objectives as the project. In other words, the welding administration must be professionally managed to be completed within budget and on time, while meeting all of the contractual requirements to the principal.

In addition to the procedures and discipline necessary to achieve this, the contractor’s supervision and management must receive the regular reports necessary to evaluate the job progress. This will enable him to take pre-emtive action to stop problems occurring and escalating.

DURING CONSTRUCTION OPERATIONS THE FOLLOWING MUST BE ENSURED:

BASIC DISCIPLINES ARE ESTABLISHED AND ADHERED TO:

REGISTERS TO BE KEPT:

BY SPOOL PIECE:

Each operation is updated so the information is carried forward to the next operation. Dates and names are accurately recorded and the operator has all the information he needs to complete the job. There is very little transcription accuracy is improved.

Each plant design has a structured quality requirement. QC clearance is the last step in the construction process, so the job is in suspense until the QC is complete. The documentation should follow immediately after the each process and should never hold up the job itself or the completion of the job. The paperwork should never accumulate through the course of the project. The final documentation should be ready for hand over the moment the last test has been completed. Weldpac makes certain of this. On large welding projects this can be very complex to calculate and always be argued against if done manually.

PERCENTAGE OF WORK COMPLETED

A certain percentage of NDT is required to prove the quality of welding. This is expressed as a percentage by ISO, line, line class, unit etc. as contracted with the client. To control the percentage of NDT required and completed a date-sequenced list of welds completed is maintained per drawing, test pack, unit, system i.e. the basis agreed in the contract. Depending on the percentage of each type of NDT required, every tenth (for a 10% requirement), fourth (for a 25% requirement) must be selected for NDT. NDT must be completed at least once a day.

WELDER QUALITY

NDT is also required to monitor the quality of the work performed by welders.

This is expressed as “first-off’s” per welder followed by a specified number of NDT’s per welder per week, monthly or as agreed with the client. To control the NDT per welder a chronological list of welds per welder is maintained. “First-off” and regular NDT is selected and performed as soon as is practical after completion of the required welds.

REPAIRS

Rejected and repaired welds must be NDT’d in the same way as the original weld was. In addition to this NDT, two similar welds from the same period must be NDT’d. Further back up NDT’s may be done in accordance with the specification. Registers must be kept of all rejects and repairs and must document the backup done for each reject.

WELD HEAT TREATMENT

Heat treatment chart numbers must be recorded in the welding documentation record.

Welding consumables are expensive to purchase and difficult to control. They are often issued in bulk and not all accounted for. Weldpac has a stores system built into it. Batch and type of consumable is entered into the Weldpac and a requisition is attached to the Weld process card.

The weld process card is designed to represent one days work for one welder on the same consumable type. This passes the accountability from the store man onto the welder.

Started in 2000, MLA specialises in designing and building field systems. These systems are built using common or mainstream technology and is very user friendly. Over the years we have built Weldpac material control and a variety of man-hour controls systems with various levels of integration and costing.

We subscribe to the theory that construction information starts on site and not on the ninth floor of a remote head office. MLA seems to be the only company in the world that exclusively builds and sells field systems. We have the knack of extracting common information across disciplines when it is hard to imagine that the QC manager, paller and accountant are working on the same project. We are quite good at it to.

Our clients include:

Our systems run on Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Server. We require internet access for support but our clients don’t require many visits to our installations.

Impress your client and third party inspectors with speed of processing and quality of documentation.