Chemical Engineering May 2016 - 84

Gulf Coast 2016 Special Advertising Section
Should you buy or rent your lifting gear?
Owning hoists and other necessities for moving process equipment may carry hidden
costs for maintenance and certification, says Lifting Gear Hire
Some of the more than 50,000 pieces of
equipment that Lifting Gear Hire offers
ifficult assembly and restricted working
spaces are among the challenges
associated with moving equipment in petrochemical
and pharmaceutical plants.
Whether the job is to build a new plant or
maintain an existing one, it is essential to
handle sensitive components safely and
gently. Failure to do so can result in expensive
downtime, personal injuries, and
damage to the environment. So, you are
going to need the right tools for lifting and
D
assembling the heaviest of loads, even in
critical environments and under cramped
conditions. The question is, should you buy
or rent your equipment? There are a few factors
to consider.
First off, can you handle repairs and certifications
in-house? One poorly maintained
hoist could break and cause whatever you
are lifting to fall. So, not only is it best to anticipate
mishaps, but you also need to consider
whether you can repair the equipment
on your own or if you will have to outsource
the repairs to another company.
Turning to the lifting gear itself, remember
that hard costs such as rental fees
and lease payments are only a small part
of total costs. Among the most frequently
overlooked costs are those of maintenance
and certifications. All equipment eventually
requires maintenance, so if you are looking
to buy, make sure you have access to
the specialized labor and testing equipment
you will need to repair your equipment.
Another question is whether the equipment
will remain in one location or be repositioned
around the country. The answer to
this largely depends on whether you are a
regionally-focused company or if you have a
geographically distributed customer base. A
regionally focused company has little need
to transport equipment, and has an on-going
need for the equipment, which makes
owning more sensible.
Weigh the long-term needs of your company
to understand what makes the most
sense. There are many factors to consider,
and no one-size-fits-all answer. Careful analysis
will help you make the right decision.
Founded in 1990, Lifting Gear Hire (LGH)
is the largest single organization in the U.S.
devoted exclusively to the provision of lifting
and moving equipment for rent and sale.
LGH provides hoisting, pulling, jacking, rigging,
material handling and safety equipment
available for immediate and safe use.
LGH's mission is to offer expertise in the
rental of the safest and most reliable hoisting
and rigging equipment to build and support
a better America. LGH puts safety first.
www.lgh-usa.com
Moving from paper to digital PDF turnover packages
Bluebeam Revu software has helped a contractor streamline its workflow and add value to
the equipment it designs and fabricates for oil and gas companies
" I
f a picture is worth a thousand words, a marked-up PDF is worth
10,000, " says Mark Henry, a Sr. Field Engineer with McCarl's Inc.,
an industrial contractor and fabricator serving the steel, chemical,
manufacturing, and oil and gas industries. In 2013, McCarl's was
awarded a contract to build a fractionation plant for a mid-stream
oil and gas company. One of the customer's requirements was to
provide a digital turnover package at the end of the job.
To make this possible, McCarl's began using Bluebeam Revu, a
PDF creation, markup and collaboration solution. Having a digital
copy linked to every related file in Revu meant it could be easily
searched, with everything accessible in a few clicks.
Since then, the team has been using Revu throughout their latest
project, a mid-stream oil and gas compressor station. Henry
starts by creating isometric drawings of the piping design, then
exports them to PDF so he can add comments and instructions in
Revu. Next, the documents are sent to McCarl's fabrication shop,
where Fabrication Draftsman Jim Cummings creates a digital dashboard
in Revu with links to all of the files in the job set, making it
easier for everyone to access and add their fabrication markups.
When they're ready for testing, Henry will mark up the P&IDs
using Revu's Line Tool to highlight the different line pressures that
need to be tested so it's clear which line gets tested and at which
pressure. Once the job is completed, every piece of information collected
along the way is packaged and delivered to the client as a PDF.
Although going digital was initially a requirement, the advanMcCarl's
uses the Sequence Tool in Revu to number and track
all of the welds that need to be made in the fabrication shop
tages were soon obvious. " Now we use it in fabrication, design, engineering,
document control, estimating - everywhere, " says Henry.
" I would like to see all contractors in oil and gas, and construction in
general, use Revu. But until they do, the fact that we use Bluebeam
Revu gives us an advantage, because it makes us more efficient,
faster, and more accurate. "
ChemiCal engineering www.Chemengonline.Com may 2016
www.bluebeam.com/fabricates
83
http://www.lgh-usa.com http://www.bluebeam.com/fabricates http://www.Chemengonline.Com
Chemical Engineering May 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering May 2016
