An industrial plant manager must be familiar with every inch of its facilities. This requires having the exact measurements of your factory. What area does the factory cover? What space do machines and production lines occupy? Do the parts conform to the theoretical design? Responding to all these questions is much easier and agile thanks to specialized tools. Do you want to know how and where are they applied?
The importance of accurate measurement for industrial facilities
Knowing the dimensions of an industrial plant is essential. For example, any modification in the layout factory to improve production involves measuring and drawing the industrial space.
What situations require the measurement of a factory? The most common are:
- When a factory needs to change the layout of the machines on a production line it’s necessary to know the location of this equipment and its environment.
- A plant suffers constant “small changes” that are not reflected in the layouts and, therefore, the plans are out of date and not reliable.
- When large parts or structures are manufactured and it is necessary to perform dimensional control of what is manufactured concerning the design or the mould.
Sometimes measures can be done manually, with a tape measure, but in most cases this is insufficient. Also, the margin of error is usually quite large when you use this method.
3D measurement for industry: benefits and applications
To achieve measurements closer to reality, 3D measurement techniques have been developed and implemented using laser scanners. These provide plant managers in a factory with benefits such as:
- Fast capture and digitization, with results in less than 24 hours.
- Non-contact measurement, without the need to stop production.
- Complete data collection of all the visible elements, both on the ground and in height.
- Millimetre precision for all measured objects and spaces.
- Mistakes elimination in the interpretation of manual measurement.
- One-time data collection for remotely measuring without having to go to the factory on-site.
- In short, a reliable measurement.
3D measurement use cases
By surveying industrial facilities with laser scanner devices, all areas or spaces of the plant are measured. In this way, engineers are provided with a photorealistic model made up of 360 images and point clouds, useful for remote 3D measurements and inspections.
Plant layouts are also made and updated or modeled in 3D to design the new production line or make virtual tours.
Through the dimensional control of castings or metallic structures, the differences between the measurement and the design or the mould are quantified, defining the machining or assembly strategy. Also, reliable information is provided for quality control.
Using simulation, it is possible to carry out the “virtual” blank assembly of large structures built in parts without the need to resort to large tonnage cranes, making projects cheaper.
Interference analyzes are also carried out for any expansion project, anticipating unforeseen events caused by the “shocks” of the new line projected in the industrial space. With these simulations, reworks are minimized.
At Geograma, you have at your disposal an Industrial Topography service, based on 3D measurement by a laser scanner. Geograma has the alliance of Leica Geosystems, which provides us with the technology to perform the following services:
- Topography of Industrial Spaces.
- Dimensional Control of Castings or Metallic Structures.
- Simulations, such as Interference Analysis and Blank Assembly.
Do you think you can take good advantage of all this? If so, we’re willing to give you all the information you need. Contact us, it will be a pleasure to help you.
