Page 25 - MetalForming September 2011

Shop foreman Gerry Scopilliti puts the finishing touches on a section of aluminum ductwork fabricated in the firm’s automated production line.
er 10 employees work in the field installing all of the sheetmetal that the shop fabricates, as well as purchased HVAC equipment. Duct Fabricators worked on most of Cleveland’s land- mark buildings, including Quicken Loans Arena, the Great Lakes Science Center and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.
In 2008, for example, the firm was entrusted to upgrade the air-handling systems operating within the Cleve- land Museum of Art. Renovating the facility’s pair of 1916-vintage buildings, as well as constructing wings to con- nect the buildings, required Duct Fab- ricators to install and integrate several air-handling units, 16 smoke-evacua- tion systems and ductwork of galva- nized and stainless steel 24 to 10 gauge, with specialized isolation and sound- dampening requirements. In an e- newsletter article published by the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Con- tractors’ National Association (SMAC- NA), Sickle stated that, “working with- in the confines of the existing structure was a primary challenge.” The article also noted that ductwork was “strate- gically placed between 90-yr.-old
Mechanical Systems (Massillon, OH). “BIM is designed to create teamwork between us (fabricator/installer) and the architects and engineers on a project. That collaboration eliminates errors in the field and the additional costs and delays that come with fabricated com- ponents that don’t fit right off the truck.”
In short, BIM allows duct fabricators (and other suppliers) to model shop and fabrication drawings including connec- tion designs and details, to effectively build a building virtually prior to build- ing it physically. BIM software users can create estimates and manage contracts, oversee material purchasing and track production. Visualization of the build- ing’s design during fabrication and erec- tion eliminates mistakes in the field— mistakes that can be costly both in terms of time and money. In addition, BIM modeling enables shops such as Duct Fabricators to prefabricate nearly all of the sheetmetal and ductwork needed for a job, reducing waste and improving scheduling and delivery.
“We strive to perform as much upfront planning and fabrication as possible,” says Sickle, “looking, for example, at all of the inlet and outlet sizes of the HVAC equipment we’re installing so we can ensure we fabricate ducts and connections that match up in the field. A detailer takes the draw- ings from the architect and engineer and overlays them to our sheetmetal shop drawings to plan how we’re to fabricate the ductwork.
“I also can offer as a service to the customer the ability to then store pre- fabricated ductwork and other sheet-
metal subassemblies at my facility, stored offsite and then delivered to the job site as needed,” continues Sickle. “That’s exactly what we’re doing for Southerly and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. This relieves a lot of pressure on the site managers and on our shop foreman.”
Shop vs. Site Work
Sickle’s 50,000-sq.-ft. fabrication shop employs five people, while anoth-
In addition to its automated duct line, Duct Fabricators operates an array of fabricating equipment, including the plasma-cutting and rollforming machines shown here.
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