Overview
This food processing plant in Mississauga had put in a production line for a product that looked like it would keep growing. Then the market moved the other way, and the line had to come out. A new line, with new machines and robotics, was going in where it stood.
The problem was the building. Nobody had reliable as-built information for that part of the plant. The new equipment was expensive and made to order, and the owner didn’t want to find out on install day that something didn’t fit. They wanted to see the new line in the real space first.
What we were given
- One production area in a working food plant, cleared for the new line
- The equipment manufacturers’ 3D models of the new machines
- Engineers and contractors who needed to plan the install together
- No usable as-built drawings of the area
What we delivered
- Registered point cloud of the area from a terrestrial scanner
- Revit model of the space at a light LOD 300: the geometry the install depended on, not every bolt
- A model the manufacturers’ equipment could be placed straight into
- Later, a model of the overhead piping, once the clash check showed it mattered
How it was done
1. Why not a tour or a mobile scan
The first suggestion was a quicker capture: a mobile scanner or a 3D tour. We talked them out of it. A tour camera is made for looking around, not for placing a machine against a wall to a few millimetres. Mobile scanning drifts over distance unless it’s tied to control. On a job where the whole question is “will it fit”, the capture has to be something you can measure from and trust. So we scanned the area with a terrestrial scanner, station by station, and registered it into one point cloud.
2. A light model on purpose
The owner didn’t need a high-detail model of the room. They needed the general geometry right: floor, walls, columns, openings, the existing structure the new line would sit inside. So we modelled it at a light LOD 300. That kept the model quick to build and easy to work in, and the point cloud stayed there underneath for anything the model didn’t carry.
3. Placing the new line in the real space
This was the point of the scan. The manufacturers sent 3D models of the new machines, and the owner’s team placed them into our model and the point cloud. Before a single machine was unloaded, they could walk the new line through the real space: where each machine lands, how the robotics reach, where people and forklifts get through. They were rehearsing the install on screen.
4. What we didn’t model, and what it caught
Here’s the part nobody planned for. We hadn’t modelled the piping overhead, because it wasn’t in scope. The new line was going on the floor, so the floor and the structure were what mattered.
The owner’s team brought the point cloud and our model into Navisworks and ran clash detection against the new machines. Some of the machines were too tall for the piping running above them. The model on its own wouldn’t have shown it, because the pipes weren’t in the model. The point cloud did, because the point cloud has everything in it, including the things nobody asked us to model.
So they came back and asked us to model the piping. Strictly speaking the install didn’t need it modelled, now that the clash was known. But the engineers and the construction crews were going to work around those pipes, and they wanted them in the model everyone was using, not just visible in the scan.
The outcome
The clash between the new machines and the existing piping turned up on a screen, not on install day with the equipment on a truck outside. The owner, their engineers and the contractors worked from one model of the area, with the new line placed in it and the piping added, and planned the installation from there. This was the second line to go into that space, and nobody wanted to get this one wrong.
What we learned, and what to ask for before a line install
- A tour is not a survey. If the question is “will this machine fit here”, capture it with something you can measure from.
- Keep the model light, and keep the point cloud. A light LOD 300 was right for this job. What made the difference was the point cloud still being in the review.
- Think about what’s overhead. New equipment goes on the floor, but clashes often come from above: piping, ducts, cable trays, structure. Decide early whether they need modelling, or at least make sure they’re in the scan.
- Ask for the manufacturers’ models early. The sooner the real equipment is in the model, the sooner the problems show up.
- Run the clash check before the equipment ships. It’s the cheapest point in the whole project to move a machine.
What we deliver for line installs now
When a plant is putting in new equipment, we now ask about the ceiling as well as the floor. What runs above the install area, and does it need to be in the model? What will the manufacturers send, and what will the clash check run in? Then we deliver the point cloud, a model built to the level the install needs, and the overhead services the new equipment could hit.
Planning a new line in a plant in Mississauga or the GTA? See 3D laser scanning in Toronto and Mississauga, our scan to BIM services, and more industrial scanning work.
