Autometrix Inc. is located in California, in the beautiful Sierra Nevada foothills. We rarely have to worry about snow or sub-freezing temperatures. But our customers do. North of California, especially where our customers (in the insulation industry) manufacture products in places like Canada, Minnesota, and Alaska, every single pipe, gauge, fitting, and valve needs to be insulated if it is exposed to the elements.
Insulating these fixtures may be necessary, but it is not easy. As our Customer Solutions Manager for Software , Gary Unitt, puts it: “No two jobs are the same. Our customers build to suit at each plant, factory, and refinery.” This means a lot of custom work. Luckily for our customers, the Autometrix PatternSmith software makes custom pattern creation a lot easier than it used to be.
Pipes 3D allows you to turn dimensions that you have measured in the field into a pattern – instantly. It figures out the correct angles of intersection with other shapes, and duplicates the 3D pattern with an off-set so that you don’t have to do the process all over again to create the insulation’s outer jacket.
With TailorMade, you can build pattern templates that shrink or grow from a 10-inch pipe, and 11-inch pipe to any other size you need. With “parametric patterns” the software does all the calculating for you, so you only do the design work once, and then there’s never a mistake. (And it’s a lot faster.)
Thermal Energy Products (TEP) can’t afford to make any mistakes – they insulate critical components on nuclear submarines, and piping components for the petrochemical and power industries. Mark Walstead, founder of TEP, which is now a Thermal Structures Inc. Company, found Autometrix and TailorMade when he was looking for ways to save time with pattern designing. “99% of our patterns are custom,” said Walstead.
“I saw the advantage of TailorMade but didn’t realize exactly how beneficial that program was going to be. It actually saves us a tremendous amount of time.” Walstead has seen other benefits from working with Autometrix products, especially the precision cutting table he purchased. “We paid for that table in six months in saved labor and materials,” he said. And it’s helped smooth his workload: “You don’t have to lay a table off when things get slow, or you can run it for more than eight hours a day.”
TEP and Thermal Structures Inc. Thermal Insulation Products
Autometrix is committed to finding innovative ways to save our customers time and money. Our products for the insulation industry are just one example of how we do this. For more information about how Autometrix can save YOU time and money, contact us at today!
Watch an insulation pattern design and cutting demo with Pipes 3D