Dome Technology does more than build a storage structure. The team helps customers grow businesses by implementing advanced ideas to store and move products within a required timeframe. Each project receives individual attention from engineers, and engineers develop design to meet specific customer needs.

With front-end engineering design (FEED), the company’s design-build team quickly provides preliminary engineering and identifies equipment within an acceptable plus-or-minus margin so customers can determine if a project’s scope fits within budget.

This type of FEED study happens before a project is engineered or constructed. “With front-end engineering design, you’re trying to identify everything upfront, determine cost and work with a customer and a lot of time the contractor,” said engineer for Dome Technology Adam Aagard, adding that with a FEED study, companies save on very detailed engineering costs.

Many construction companies will complete a FEED study for a potential customer, but Dome Technology takes it a step further with value engineering, a refined process that follows initial engineering for a project. While working closely with the customer to understand needs and concerns, Dome Technology’s engineers analyze the project to propose innovative, cost-saving ways to accomplish tasks.

For instance, if a company were storing fly ash, engineers would refine a plan to include specialized material handling that prevents poor flow, bridging and rat-holing; they would also recommend monitoring systems that help ensure a dry, stable interior climate. Dome Technology’s team may even provide solutions and innovations new to the customer.

The team also capitalizes on infrastructure and considers possible expansion. That might mean conveyor supports sharing a foundation with the dome, yielding greater stability and support plus substantial construction savings. Or it might mean building a ramp that will work for today’s dome but is also designed to function with a future adjacent dome. By seeing the potential, engineers incorporate anticipated growth into today’s design.

Often this saves on costs. “Value engineering is where you take something that’s already been engineered and you scrutinize it and you work with the customer or the contractor to determine if there’s an equivalent substitute for a lower cost,” Aagard said. “You can do that with components, you can do that with structures, you can do that with pretty much any of the parts and pieces.”

The above is an excerpt of a Dome Technology article that ran in the June 2016 issue of Dry Cargo International.