The Benefits of Working with a Custom Panel Fabrication Shop
An electrical panel’s design and build are the starting points for implementing factory automation into a process. It’s therefore important to find a contractor who can produce high-quality panels for your facility. Custom panel fabrication shops employ technicians with the skills and experience to understand your needs and produce customized panels that meet your current requirements and anticipate future expansion. Here are a few benefits of working with a custom panel fabrication shop.
Increase Quality with a Custom Panel Fabrication Shop
To design and build high-quality panels, you need the right ingredients.
Building Panels is Their Specialty
The technicians in a custom panel fabrication shop are subject matter specialists in industrial control panels. Since their daily focus is panel fabrication, they’re trained to work on complicated projects. They understand the equipment and modules and know how to wire efficient and consistent layouts. They create accurate drawings and wiring schematics.
Working in a Controlled Environment
Performing work in the field can be hot and humid and include spatial constraints. A custom panel shop works in a controlled work environment—such as an air-conditioned warehouse—that grants technicians the time and ability to craft high-quality electrical panels.
Creating Strong Client Relationships
When building custom panels, panel fabrication shops work to understand the environment of the facility and the specific operational needs of the client. Since they are involved in the process from design to build, they are in constant communication with clients, getting to know the client’s preferences and working to alleviate any challenges or concerns associated with the project.
Troubleshoot with Ease
A disorganized panel can be dangerous and difficult to work with. A custom panel shop builds panels based on their own drawings. They include a logical system of numbering the wires, which is properly indicated on their schematics.
Anyone—even someone unfamiliar with the panel—can easily understand and identify the correct wires for startup, troubleshooting, and maintenance, saving time and money. This is important as older generations retire and less experienced technicians join the workforce. An organized panel with good documentation helps new employees learn the operations and maintenance of the equipment.
Allow for More Flexibility in Your Automation Project
Panel fabrication shops familiar with a variety of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) platforms, and who work with brand-agnostic system integrators, create opportunities for alternative solutions for your project. Knowledge of multiple hardware platforms, such as Siemens and Allen Bradley, becomes an advantage as the industry struggles with post-pandemic supply chain problems. Their knowledge of the necessary components and their availability helps to direct clients in making the right selection of materials to reduce lead times.
Rather than building your panel around the specific location at your site, custom panel shops can construct the panel to fit around your specific control system. The panels are built to adapt along with the needs of your plant because their design is based on the capabilities of the control system and not the limitations of your current IO. Therefore, if an area of the plant needed to be modified or the panel needed to be moved to a different location, the panel does not have to be scrapped—it can be used in other areas at your facility. This method not only is cost-effective, but time-saving.
Custom panel shops create the drawings and wiring schematics used to construct the panel. Their familiarity with the design increases their understanding of issues and allows them to provide rational solutions that improve the quality of panel and the lives of those who interact with them.
Prioritize Safety Through a Custom Panel Shop
If your site has environmental considerations, such as flammable fibers, you want to ensure that all panels meet specifications based on their classification and division. Construction by an experienced panel shop guarantees your panel will be built to the required specifications to maintain the safety of your workforce and the surrounding area. Using the right materials based on the hazardous environment prevents erosion, increases longevity, and retains the integrity of the enclosure.
Another aspect of safety that is often overlooked is how neatly the panel is laid out and constructed. Put simply, a neat panel is a safe panel. Building a well-organized and well-documented electrical panel is critical to the safety of the field contractors who are involved in its installation and maintenance.
Segregating wires with different voltages, logically labeling terminal markers and wire labels, and allowing more than adequate space to land field wiring make life not only easier, but safer. Neatly designed panels are easier to work with reducing the chance of injury.
For Your Next Panel Build, Partner with a Team that Sees the Big Picture
Working with a custom panel fabrication shop can increase the quality of your panels, provide flexibility to your project, and improve the safety of your facility.
Hargrove Controls & Automation is a relationship-based company, so our in-house panel fabrication facility strives to understand your best interests. From constructing new panels to replacing existing enclosures, we design and build custom electrical panels and custom enclosures that meet and exceed the safety requirements of your facility and the quality expectations of your project.
Backed by the Hargrove Team of Companies, Hargrove Controls & Automation’s panel shop offers subject matter specialists in all areas. With a multitude of experience, we can tackle problems and overcome challenges throughout the project.
Learn more about Hargrove’s panel shop capabilities by visiting our website.
