Walters INC, Essay Example

Introduction

Walters Inc is based in Ontario and its main specialization is structural steel and fabrication and erection. The work they produce is done with a lot of safety, efficiency while keeping a close eye on the budget. The engineering team is creative because it comes up with solutions that aim at helping different parties to realize their visions. Examples of these parties include consultants, architects and the owners.

Steel processes

The process involved in the entire procedure that occurs from the time that Walters is awarded a job to the time the finished steel arrives on site involves:

1. Detail and Connection Engineering
   b. Safety and Construction Planning
   c. Erection Timeline
   d. Drawings Approval
   e. Production Planning
   f. Material Order
   g. CNC Programming
   h. Fabrication and Assembly Process
   i. Shipping Process

Detail and Connection Engineering

It is essential for any firm to look into satisfaction of their customer’s needs and this is why Walters first focuses on understanding the client’s needs and the setbacks involved. With the information collected about the client’s needs, the firm is then able to determine the next step of planning.

Safety and Construction Planning

Walters then comes up with plan on how to meet the established need and this is done by making a safe design which is constructible.

Erection Timeline

After coming up with a safe construction plan, shop drawings are made to enable proper fabrication of the desired structure. A certain timeline is given to allow for drawings to be made, which are then forwarded for approval.

Drawings Approval

This is where the drawings are checked by experts to ascertain their adequacy. The drawings are then approved and erected to properly assemble the finished structure at the place of construction.

Production planning

The team then comes up with a plan on how they are going to start the production process. The project could be big enough such that it would require a great deal of concern in terms of details.

Material Order

The first step should always be the ordering of the steel and tagging to ensure that it is attached to the right project. This is when fabrication starts. Some of the activities involved during fabrication include welding, marking bent and drilled plates considering the number of the project and the drawings location.

CNC Programming

CNC, also known as Computer Numeric Control enables computers to perform human operations and movements in efficient and accurate ways. This technology refers to automating machine tools that are operated by commands that are programmed on a storage device. CNC uses the Computer Aided Designs produce a computer file which is interpreted to get the required command that should operate a certain machine then used for production while in the CNC machines. The CNC technology is very handy at Walters because it helps in controlling bevelling, bending and forming of steel detail pieces. This is normally done by programming the intended shape form the drawings’ specification and steel is formed by the machine which does it in a way that is so accurate and reliable compared to manual labour.

Fabrication and Assembly Process

Steel’s raw material has to be shaped and the first step is cutting them into appropriate sizes. Different tools are used to this task which is also known as metalworking. These tools could be special band saws, abrasive cut-off/chop saws, cutting torches, laser cutting tables, plasma and water jet cutters. The fabrication assembly is mostly limited by aspects such as weight in total, plant capabilities, length n overall and shipping.

Shipping Process

After fabrication and assembly, the steel is shipped to the various destinations.

Welding positions

There are four “standard positions” used in industrial welding for which a welder must be qualified are the horizontal, flat, vertical, up or down and overhead. These positions are just like the name suggests and a good example is shown below.

Figure 1: Overhead welding of test specimen at Walters Inc. (Packer n.d.)

 The four welding processes used at Walters are:

• Flux-Cored Arc Welding (with shielding gas)

The flux generates protection from the atmosphere and does not need any shielding gas, it has a high rate of deposition process, does not need much pre-leaning and can satisfy all positions in welding.

• Flux-Cored Arc Welding (without shielding gas)

Is same as the one above only that it does not have shielding gas.

• Gas Metal Arc Welding (spray mode)

It is very effective and has really boosted manufacturing processes due to its ability to perform automated welding. It is however not suitable for outdoor welding because it does not perform as well when the shielding gas mixes with air.

• Shielded Metal Arc Welding

It has proved to be the simplest in operation and due to that it is widely used by firms worldwide. (Wikipedia n.d.)

They are used to make the welds using a single pass.

Milling

The process of cutting, shaping metals and other materials that are solid metals is known as milling. Milling can also include movement of work piece against the rotating cutter. It has two categories which have been categorized according to the cutting tool’s orientation. Milling would be required in instances such as where there is a need to drill, where precision cuts are required, slots cutting and cutting keyways.

Holes in a beam are made using two major techniques:

• Drilling
• Torching

For a certain method to be decided upon there are several aspects that have to be considered and they may include the thickness of steel, the tolerance or precision required and diameter of the hole. Drilling works perfectly with holes which have small thickness and diameter. Dense thickness makes drilling very difficult and it is hence advised to be done at speeds that are slow and lighter pressures. To increase efficiency in drilling, a cutting fluid may be used. Torching on the other hand, is most appropriate while making big holes preferably.

Fitters

Steel fitters are responsible for erection of a steel structure after its fabrication. He also does the initial preparation and assembly of the steel structure as shown in the drawings. The process of steel erection has a number of factors that needs to be considered before a welder and fitter job are divided into two.  One can either be a fitter or a welder and a few have people are known for being both.

Pricing

Pricing steel is done on a per unit basis and it is related with the weight of the material. The unit is therefore a metric tonne. Coming up with a unit price is not as easy because a big number of costs have to be captured and reflected in the unit rate. It is not the usual per unit basis which would be got by dividing the cost of steel by the ordered tonnage. Walters Inc need to be strategic about this because the company’s profitability will only be maintained if costs like engineering, labour, estimating, overhead, erection and delivery are captured. They have to be considered because they keep recurring and it could be easy to handle them by inflating the unit rates.

It is useful to categorize the unit prices as “Low Volume, High Labour”, High Volume, High Labour”, “Low Volume, Low Labour”, and “High Volume, Low Labour”.  “Low Volume, High Labour” will cause a very high unit price because the overhead costs have to be covered even if the output volume was low. For example, the Bow project in Calgary, which Walters Group is involved with, requires to manufacture of 40,38 ton. Each one of these specially fabricated units takes 1000 man hours to complete. It is classified as a heavy fabrication and Walter is priced at $10,000 per ton which would make the cost of these units $380,000 each. The second category is the “High Volume, High Labour” which aims at generating a low unit price. “Low Volume, Low Labour”, and “High Volume, Low Labour” on the other hand would both end up generating low unit price.

Engineering drawings

This is a drawing created within a discipline of technical drawing which is used to define requirements for items that have been engineered. They are usually made in alignment with standard conventions for layout, interpretation, appearance or size. They are used to capture all product features that are geometric.  An engineering drawing aims at communicating to the manufacturer about any information required to produce a product or component. This information will mainly involve the object’s shape, its size, allowable variations for each dimension, representation of its purpose and the specific surface quality.

Shop drawings

These drawings should incorporate the engineer and the architect’s idea for comparing the drawings and the specifications. These drawings focus more on the performance, appearance, specified descriptions in the construction drawings. They are more detailed and are required for pre-fabricated products.

Erection drawings

These drawings assist in guiding the steel erector in the field on matters regarding the location and time to erect the fabricated steel. Erection drawings give full information and requirements. However, they have minimal information about the fabrication of any individual which is apparently not required at this point.

Conclusion

Walters Group has amazing things to show and the technical processes behind the outlook that everyone sees are not a joke. It is with no doubt that the effort put is worth it. If more is given to customer satisfaction, with the help of an aggressive management, Walters would become an icon for every company.

Works Cited

Packer. J. A. (n.d) Welding positions. Flare Groove Welds to HSS Corners. Retrieved on 22^nd March 2010 from http://www.cwa-acs.org/members/journal/Fall2003/Packer.pdf

Packer. J. A. (n.d). Welding processes. Recommended Effective Throat Sizes for

Flare Groove Welds to HSS. Retrieved on 22^nd March 2010 from http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:KV5rfMPNdaYJ:www.solutionsforstructuralsteel.org/assets/0/544/546/670/742c7a4e-5e10-4b0b-8ba8-a8516cdafd9f.pdf+four+welding+processes+at+waltersinc.com&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Walters Inc. Company operations. Retrieved on 20th March 2010 from http://www.waltersinc.com

Wikipedia (n.d.) Welding processes. Retrieved on 22^nd March 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_metal_arc