Field Services
Good field people are hard to find. It can be grueling work – extreme temperatures, a lot of stair climbing, up and down on fixed industrial ladders and high noise levels. They also need to be well versed in process flows, different equipment types, equipment purpose and function, valve types, instrument types, instrument signals and drawing symbology. A good field technician will also have good communication skills, exceptional note-taking habits, and be able to “think on their feet”. At Draftech, we pride ourselves in obtaining the services of highly respected and experienced field personnel. We then pair them with up-and-coming technicians to engage in a mentoring process. Usually, these young techs are being promoted from our drafting department.
In this way, we’re able to develop field technicians that can,
- get things done right in the field, and
- get the information incorporated into CAD files efficiently and effectively. The CAD portion is not an afterthought – it’s an already highly developed skill.
Below is a partial list of the field services Draftech can provide. If you have a particular need not listed, call us, and we’ll be happy to discuss possible solutions.
- PID Verification
- Instrument Verification
- System As-Builts
- Environmental Inspections
- Project Management
- Craft Supervision
- Sample Collection
- Mechanical Integrity Inspections
- Isometric Development
- System Validation
- QA/QC Inspections
- Electrical Verification
Getting Lean with Focused Service
We feel that Draftech, Inc. is uniquely qualified to add significant value to the process of PID line walks. For years, PID line walks have been the domain of large engineering houses. These companies fall into two habits which are detrimental to their customers.
First, an engineer stationed at a refinery may spend only 10% of his time performing engineering responsibilities. The other 90% of his time is spent with routine work like line walks, CAD drafting, layouts, verifications, and clerical work, for which they may or may not be ideally suited.
Secondly, the cost of recruiting and maintaining a staff of quality engineers is expensive. That drives up the price of non-degreed support staff (designers, line walkers, CAD drafters, etc.), as engineering companies seek revenues from those sources to keep their own staffs intact during slow and transitional periods.
The end result of this state of affairs is that
- customers end up with contract personnel that are not ideally suited for their responsibilities, and
- customers pay a significant premium for non-degreed engineering support staff.
Draftech, Inc. is NOT an engineering company. Our primary focus since our inception has been providing non-degreed technical support personnel. Because our business model DOES NOT involve the recruitment and retention of professional engineers, our overhead is necessarily lower. By supplementing your engineering department and contract engineers with our support staff, you can realize significant cost reductions without sacrificing quality or quantity.
Draftech field technicians, much like all other engineering contractors, have varying degrees of industrial experience in various disciplines. The field experience of our technicians would rival that of anyone’s. What we believe separates us from our competition is that our technicians, in addition to solid field experience, also have extensive experience with CAD and document management, two of the foundational aspects of the “new” engineering office. Most of our technicians started out with an associate’s degree in CAD drafting/design, and were promoted into the field services. For many engineering companies, it’s exactly the opposite. Field techs are taught rudimentary CAD skills to fill time, never leading to anything more than basic comprehension.
Draftech field techs will have much more than a passing knowledge of basic CAD functions. Many have been involved with cutting edge CAD organizations. Therefore, your company can expect improvement in the quality of drawings, but perhaps more significantly, our technicians will have an enhanced understanding of the importance of document management.