Sanjel slashes complex oilfield design from two years to six months

Kris Sato, senior mechanical designer at Sanjel, explains that when one of its oil drilling customers needed special equipment – a robust, redundant cementing skid – Sanjel was able to adopt what he describes as "an aggressive design stance", using SolidWorks 3D CAD software to lop 75% off the normal timeframe. "Our designers and the fabrication team collaborated in real time around SolidWorks 3D models," says Sato. "This helped us deliver quickly on an important product that could easily have taken two years to build. "SolidWorks software gave everyone involved a clear picture of what we were working on and working toward. It kept us moving fast." Sanjel's SCM skid is a self-contained mobile unit that can be transported on a large winch truck from site to site over unpaved desert roads or on the back of a low-boy trailer on paved highway. Sato says that in developing the custom cementing unit, Sanjel used SolidWorks Simulation software to ensure that it was rugged enough to withstand being loaded up onto the back of the winch truck, being lifted onto a cargo ship by crane, sustaining impacts from vehicles and machinery, and enduring conditions commonly encountered in the oilfield. Design engineers also used SolidWorks eDrawings email-enabled design communication software to help everyone from welders to executives, to understand and evaluate the design. Sato also cites SolidWorks' sheet metal package as allowing designers to provide welders with quick and accurate pipe templates. "We'd edit a design in real time, refresh the assembly, display the new piping run, and the guys would put it together," says Sato. "We quickly arrived at the most logical, functional and fabrication-friendly piping run, and we did it fast. Methods like these, and the power of 3D design, let us do this in six months versus two years."