BIM based spool drawing provides comprehensive manufacturing and fabrication information for each unique “spool piece

Spool drawings are assembly drawings which contain comprehensive manufacturing and fabrication information for each unique “spool piece”. Piping spools are generally represented in symbolic isometric drawings. Spool drawings are produced from a BIM model in 3D representation, line representation, and symbolic form along with 2D plans, sections and isometric views. BIM can automatically assign spool assembly drawings with bill of material data.

The piping spool drawings can be utilized for accurate pre-fabrication off-site / on-site compliant with contractors’ pre-fabricating standards and preferences.

A spool drawing may contain dimensions and angles, a bill of materials, and manufacturing information.

Spool drawings provide the following information :-

2-D or isometric view of the spool piece producing adequate features for manufacturing. Sections are given if necessary.
Bill of material for fabrication
Field installation information, for example a line tag number and field tie-in numbers
Suggest support spacing

EC Piping for AutoCAD MEP 2008 is very good software to generate spool drawing quickly with a cut list, fitting list and number of welds. Fabrication for AutoCAD MEP is also an useful tool for generating spool drawing.

This software provides pipe and duct spool drawings which can be used for 3D visualization, dimensioning, tagging, and scheduling with production. Spools are fully customizable to a customer’s shop standards, with comprehensive reporting and scheduling capabilities that can contain data for labor estimating systems.

In order to support multi-discipline pre-fabrication, the users can make spools with both mechanical and HVAC content. There are additional features like spool revision tracking, easy part number updating when changing the view of a spool.