Automated post-production quality control for prefabricated pipe-spools

Abstract

Prefabrications has been gaining popularity in the construction industry over the past decade as it provides a safer and more sustainable operation as well as higher quality and cheaper construction components, due to its controlled conditions during fabrication, in-house quality assurance systems, and lower amount of waste. Despite the advantages of prefabrication methods, the current quality management processes, particularly in piping fabrication, are labour-intensive, time-consuming, expensive and rather inaccurate. This paper investigates automated solutions for improving the quality management system associated with the prefabrication of piping assemblies in the industrial sector of the construction industry. The scope of this research is the quality management processes conducted at the post-production stage of the fabrication process. The findings of this paper indicated that 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry techniques can both be successfully used in quality assurance systems for postfabrication of pipe-spools. It was concluded that these methods exceeded the accuracy requirements of the current systems, while substantially improving the efficiencies of the quality assurance processes for prefabrication operations.