Welding Fabrication Digitization: AI, Logistics and the Blockchain

What do you think of when you hear terms like AI, logistics and the blockchain? Science fiction? Mumbo Jumbo? Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency? In terms of the pressure equipment and piping design and fabrication industry, these are tangible technologies that are making a significant impact and improvement on how fabrication companies get things done.

In this blog, we’ll explain how AI, Logistics and the Blockchain are being used to make planning tasks, setting their priority, establishing prerequisites, managing resources and aligning schedules integrate seamlessly together towards ideal product delivery.

AI, Logistics, Blockchain and Welding Fabrication Processes

In terms of a tangible result, what does utilizing AI, logistics and the blockchain do for your welding and design processes?

When you digitize your welding fabrication processes, you:

Experience a reduced workload from the beginning of a welding project through the end.
Digital change management reduces complexity, minimizes errors and ensures all sign-offs are obtained.
Embed best practices from all your staff into your digital way of work for constant quality improvement driven by the tools.
Monitor and transmit the status of an entire welding fabrication process in real-time across all key stakeholders.
Gain predictive alerts when projects begin to go awry, allowing you to remedy situations before they spiral out of control.

With fabrication software, you put your mind at ease when unforeseen circumstances arise that cause your welding projects to be delayed and make your profitability vanish. Your entire staff--stakeholders, contractors, vendors and customers, will know about any changing variables well in advance to avert unwanted outcomes.

Welding Fabrication Digitization Equals Optimization

Digital resources like AI and deep learning can monitor and absorb how you specifically go about planning your builds. As welders move on from your company and as you bring in new employees, you don’t need to worry about losing efficiency. Digitization of your enterprise resource planning means you’re able to handle your welders with higher utilization, allowing you to do more with less personnel, being better able to retain your best welders by providing you with logistics to keep them busy and your business profitable.

In the same way, less skilled apprentice welders can be utilized more efficiently as well. With each weld analyzed for difficulty as well as the time required and compared against welding procedure and craftworker ratings you can always be confident the optimal staff member is working on each task so that an experienced welder isn’t laying a simple horizontal Mig bead fillet with E6018 on ½” carbon, or a brand new torch welder isn't working an overhead Tig with ER309 on 8” stainless.

Welding Fabrication Digitization Is Less Intimidating Than You'd Think

For many, while the nightmare of non-compliance is terrifying, the thought of transitioning out of manual processes and into digitization may seem equally, if not more, intimidating! Some companies worry that their budget, workflow and employees can’t handle the move towards digitized processes and that new “busy work” will be manufactured across the company. But the reality is, these fears simply aren’t concurrent with the lived experiences of those who have made the transition from manual processes.

So, how much of your welders’ potential is lost due to misalignment — having journeyman-level welders doing the job of an apprentice or tack welding done by a skilled manual Tig welder?

How many unproductive labor hours are you footing the bill for due to welders sitting on the sideline with nothing to do while fit-up or edge prep are lagging behind? How far back do your projects get when a welder suddenly becomes unavailable? The truth is, these very real costs almost always outweigh those of antiquated forms of workflow management and project implementation.

Do More With Less Through AI, Logistics and the Blockchain

Changing the way your team has worked since the ’80s or ’90s can seem jarring, but the reality is your processes will have to change to stay competitive. Digitizing now is your chance to gain an upper hand on your competition, both now and in the future as our industry becomes an ever-increasingly global landscape.

At CEI, we created our Fabrication Manager software to make the most complicated parts of digitization as easy as checking your email. When you’re ready to take advantage of all the benefits welding fabrication software (including AI, logistics and the blockchain) can do for your fabrication processes, schedule a call and experience a demo of what CEI’s software solutions can do for you.