Adel RAHAL

CONTEXT

In all industries, companies have customer, safety and process requirements along with financial constraints, etc.

Thermal insulation of fluid circuits (water, steam, specific chemicals, etc.) is a frequent need: a minimal fluid temperature may be required, the risk of operator physical contact with hot circuit elements must be reduced, etc.

One solution is using heat-insulating sheaths that are placed around fluid circuits. Two issues arise however: maintenance operations can be time-consuming and hazardous. The operator's facial skin could be exposed to fiberglass wool and small particles could enter his respiratory tract.

Another approach is using a customized solution for each "singular point". These are the parts of the fluid circuit where heat losses are the highest. Most of the time, these are zones with discontinuities (bent pipes, 3-way valves, etc.). One given plant can have hundreds of singular points. Sodex Industrie manufactures such a customized solution called: insulating mattress. Maintenance is simplified thanks to the belt system allowing easy connection and disconnection from the circuit. There is no contact with the insulator since it is placed inside the fabric. Customized mattress manufacturing first requires locating all singular points in the plant. Measurements are made afterwards and provided to an internal tool used to generate a template. The latter is finally used for mattress manufacturing.

WORK

I had to automate the template generation process. To do so, I developed a software acting as a layer between the company's internal tool and a plotter. I went through all the V-cycle steps: requirements elicitation (from the CEO, sales staff and operators), software architecture, design, development and testing. The product has now become an integral part of the company's toolset.

The user can select input data (either from a file or through direct input), and the kind of template he wants to generate. Errors are detected and indicated in red. The user first gets a preview of the templates before deciding printing them. When the decision has been made, Windows APIs are used in order to print the templates using the plotter. It also displays the state of the plotter in order to evaluate maintenance needs. Drawing progression is indicated with a progress bar. The template also contains specific customer informations that create seemless integration of the tool with strict processes inside the warehouse.