Every industry sector and operating environment brings unique challenges to your day-to-day operations. For many of these situations, if you want to maintain your productivity and competitive edge, an off-the-shelf automation solution won’t provide the flexibility or specialized functionality you need to fully streamline your operations.
With the expertise of a custom fabrication shop on your side, you can achieve cost-effective, tailored solutions that enhance your performance, ensure quality and reliability, and provide an advantage in competitive industries. In this article, we’ll dive into the capabilities of our fabrication shop and show you how Winn-Marion’s engineers can help you solve your most complex operational challenges.
Why You Need a Custom Fabrication Shop
Every industrial automation project has specialized requirements based on your facility’s specific operational needs, environmental conditions, and objectives. With custom fabrication expertise, you can create components and systems such as industrial controls and electrical panels precisely designed to meet these unique specifications, ensuring optimal performance and integration.
By outsourcing custom engineering solutions to skilled engineers and fabricators, you can ensure your solutions are more efficient, effective, and creative than off-the-shelf solutions and can more easily be adapted to changes in project scope, design modifications, or updates in technology.
Taking advantage of the skilled team at a custom fabrication shop is often more cost-effective in the long run. By designing solutions that precisely meet their needs, businesses can avoid the inefficiencies, modifications, and compromises associated with adapting pre-made solutions, improving the return on their investments.
By working with a custom fabrication shop like ours, industrial automation businesses can accelerate the development and implementation of their automation solutions, beating out the competition in time-to-market for new products.
At Winn-Marion, our fabrication shop also provides comprehensive technical support and maintenance services to minimize downtime and maximize both productivity and the service lifetime of custom equipment.
Exploring Winn-Marion’s Fabrication Capabilities
In our fabrication shop, we build custom automation solutions, including industrial electrical panels tailored for specific applications in the industrial automation sector. These solutions include the fabrication and installation of variable frequency drives, switchgear, and custom industrial controls to meet the unique requirements of any client, no matter their sector’s demands.
Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs)
VFDs precisely control the speed, torque, and direction of your electric motors based on the specific needs of your industrial operations, from pump control to conveyor systems. Our fabrication shop’s technicians build VFDs with custom enclosure designs and control features to meet specific environmental and operational conditions.
Unlike off-the-shelf products, custom VFDs from our shop can be programmed and integrated with your existing systems to allow for greater efficiency and energy savings.
Switchgear
In our custom fabrication shop, we design and assemble switchgear configurations that manage, protect, and isolate electrical equipment in your specific industrial settings, ensuring that industrial electrical systems are safely managed and can be easily maintained or upgraded as needs change.
Customization for switchgear can include specific voltage ratings, configurations (such as arc-resistant designs), integration with monitoring systems for enhanced operational safety and reliability, and the design for specific spatial constraints within a facility or particular environmental conditions.
Custom Electrical Panel and Industrial Control Design
Industrial electrical panels and controls are some of the most essential elements of a custom automation solution. These panels house and organize the electrical components that control your industrial machinery and processes.
Turning to our fabrication shop for custom industrial electrical panels ensures more efficient and streamlined control over your systems than you would find in off-the-shelf solutions while ensuring safety, efficiency, and ease of maintenance. Custom industrial controls from our shop can integrate specific components, such as PLCs, relays, and operator interfaces, tailored to your operational requirements and designed to meet industry-specific standards and certifications.
Understanding Common Industrial Electrical Panel Standards
A custom fabrication shop has to meet specific industrial standards for designing and manufacturing industrial panels to ensure its solutions can legally be used in commercial and industrial settings. As a UL 698A and UL 508A panel shop, Winn-Marion’s fabrication capabilities adhere closely to high standards to ensure that construction and performance meet rigorous safety standards and guidelines for various industrial and commercial applications.
What Are UL 508A Standards?
The UL 508A Standard for Industrial Control Panels set by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) sets the construction, safety, and performance requirements for industrial control panels and assemblies in various industrial and commercial automation applications.
When a UL 508A panel shop adheres to these standards and maintains its UL 508A certification, it provides a third-party verification that its custom commercial and industrial control panels meet recognized national safety standards and comply with insurance policies and local electrical codes.
What Are UL 698A Standards?
Similar to UL 508A, another set of standards for panel shops concerns itself primarily with control panels used in hazardous environments. UL 698A certification ensures that panel shops can produce control panels suitable for use in environments where explosive gasses, dust, or fibers may be present.
In these hazardous environments, improperly designed control panels can ignite flammable materials in the atmosphere and cause a fire risk. The UL 698A Standard for Industrial Control Panels Relating to Hazardous (Classified) Locations holds panel shops to build control panels with specific configurations and protections to avoid these scenarios, such as sealing, encapsulation, and using intrinsically safe barriers. Winn-Marion is also a UL 891 listed panel shop, in addition to UL 508A and UL 698A.
Build Better Industrial Control Panels With Winn-Marion
Winn-Marion has provided heavily customized end-to-end automation solutions for over half a century to help clients across the United States’s energy industry and other industrial sectors streamline their processes and stay on the cutting edge of technology.
The engineers in our nationwide network of fabrication shops are ready and able to bring simple, elegant automation solutions to your most complex energy and engineering challenges and keep you at peak performance. From drives and switchgear to custom industrial electrical panels and controls, we design, build, install, and keep it running smoothly.
Reach out to your nearest Winn-Marion location today to get started.
FAQs
Why should I choose a custom fabrication shop for my industrial automation needs?
A custom fabrication shop can provide tailored solutions that meet your specific operational requirements, ensuring optimal performance and integration. Off-the-shelf solutions may not offer the flexibility or specialized functionality needed to streamline your operations effectively.
What are the benefits of outsourcing custom engineering solutions to a fabrication shop?
Outsourcing to a fabrication shop allows businesses to create more efficient, effective, and creative solutions than off-the-shelf options. Custom solutions can be easily adapted to changes in project scope, design modifications, or updates in technology, ultimately improving the return on investment.
How can custom industrial electrical panels and controls benefit my business?
Custom industrial electrical panels and controls offer more efficient and streamlined control over your systems compared to off-the-shelf solutions. These panels can integrate specific components tailored to your operational requirements, designed to meet industry-specific standards and certifications for safety, efficiency, and ease of maintenance.
What are UL 508A and UL 698A standards, and why are they important for fabrication shops?
UL 508A and UL 698A standards set construction, safety, and performance requirements for industrial control panels used in various industrial and commercial automation applications. Adherence to these standards and maintaining certification ensures that custom control panels meet recognized safety standards, comply with local electrical codes, and can legally be used in commercial and industrial settings.