A longtime Schaffer Manufacturing customer designs and manufactures portable, automated and remote-controlled dredging systems. Applications for the equipment include chemical and biological clean-up of waterways, canal dredging, water treatment plant maintenance, and sediment removal from power plant reception ponds and inlet channels.

Schaffer has collaborated with the manufacturer since 2005 to fabricate the structural steel floating platforms – in barge and pontoon formats – engineered to carry dredging equipment, propulsion units and sophisticated control systems. The largest dredging platforms that Schaffer produces are approximately 60 feet long, and must provide buoyancy capable of bearing 50,000 pounds.

As part of an initiative to cost-reduce dredge manufacturing, engineers for the dredge builder asked Schaffer to review an existing barge-type platform to recommend engineering changes that would streamline fabrication, save operational steps, and reduced material costs. A single Schaffer analysis identified 24 engineering change recommendations. The changes, all accepted by the customer, included modifications as simple as adding a .188” clearance-improving corner radii that eliminated a non-value added grinding operation. But Schaffer also identified an engineering change that replaced a two-piece welded part with a single, more cost-efficient formed component. The most significant cost-reducing tactic streamlined manufacturing time by organizing the production scheme into more manageable, strategically-combined subassemblies.

A longtime Schaffer Manufacturing customer designs and manufactures portable, automated and remote-controlled dredging systems. Applications for the equipment include chemical and biological clean-up of waterways, canal dredging, water treatment plant maintenance, and sediment removal from power plant reception ponds and inlet channels.

Schaffer has collaborated with the manufacturer since 2005 to fabricate the structural steel floating platforms – in barge and pontoon formats – engineered to carry dredging equipment, propulsion units and sophisticated control systems. The largest dredging platforms that Schaffer produces are approximately 60 feet long, and must provide buoyancy capable of bearing 50,000 pounds.

As part of an initiative to cost-reduce dredge manufacturing, engineers for the dredge builder asked Schaffer to review an existing barge-type platform to recommend engineering changes that would streamline fabrication, save operational steps, and reduced material costs. A single Schaffer analysis identified 24 engineering change recommendations. The changes, all accepted by the customer, included modifications as simple as adding a .188” clearance-improving corner radii that eliminated a non-value added grinding operation. But Schaffer also identified an engineering change that replaced a two-piece welded part with a single, more cost-efficient formed component. The most significant cost-reducing tactic streamlined manufacturing time by organizing the production scheme into more manageable, strategically-combined subassemblies.