Inspect3D Announced at Shutdowns Turnarounds Houston

Houston, TX, June 25, 2013 Meridian Associates, Inc. will announce its Inspect3D service at the Shutdowns Turnarounds Superconference, Omni Westside Hotel in Houston, Texas this week. In the session on Wednesday, June 26th, Using 3D Technologies to Greatly Reduce Risk and Maintain Schedule and Budget Control, Meridians Principal, Greg Lawes, and Houston Regional Project Manager, Andrew Titcomb, will explain how Inspect3D for coke drum/vessel mapping, spool piece metrology and fabrication can greatly reduce risk for plant owners and personnel while keeping outages on schedule and within budget.

Meridians experience in a refinery is an invaluable resource to assure the job is performed safely in a harsh environment, says Richard Boswell, Principal, Stress Engineering, Inc. Meridian has worked closely with Stress Engineering to develop proprietary tools and software for vessel/coke drum profiling as part of its Inspect3D service. We have developed software to easily manipulate the 3D data captured by Meridian for quick communication with our clients and to use as input for our finite element modeling for bulge severity analysis.

Thorough inspection of vessels/coke drums, nozzles, and any part or assembly in an operating facility is paramount for successful turnarounds. Most turnaround managers dont realize the full potential of todays 3D data capture and reporting tools, and are not leveraging these tools enough for their work. We are thrilled to be presenting at Shutdowns Turnarounds Houston, and look forward to sharing our domain expertise with an audience that would greatly benefit from precision inspection for safer turnarounds, says Lawes. The session will examine how 3D laser scanning and dimensional control can greatly reduce errors and omissions in turnaround planning by providing accurate 3D data and information to the turnaround team.

Inaccurate or incomplete existing conditions documentation can cause plant maintenance and modification projects to face unanticipated interference and delays. Idled field labor crews, field rework, and extended outages can potentially result in significant cost to the project and owner. Keeping personnel out of harms way is difficult without complete as-built and fabrication validation information. Inspect3D addresses all these challenges and helps owners gain more control over their outage periods while keeping their people and operating facilities safe.

About Meridian

Meridian Associates Inc. is a leading provider of 3D laser scanning and modeling services for engineering, construction and design applications. By providing timely, accurate information, Meridian helps professionals across transportation, construction, manufacturing, industrial, municipal and power industries to improve their quality, schedule, safety, and risk profile. Founded in 1990, Meridian has executed thousands of laser scanning and modeling projects in the past ten years in thirty five states and five countries. In addition to providing 3D laser scanning services, Meridian is a multi-disciplinary planning, civil engineering, land surveying and landscape architecture firm offering land development and infrastructure consulting services. The firm is headquartered in Beverly, Massachusetts with offices in Westborough, Massachusetts; Cherry Hill, New Jersey; Houston, Texas; and Reidsville, North Carolina.

To learn more about Meridian, please see the following web links and contact information:

www.meridianassoc.com and mai@meridianassoc.com

www.meridian-3D.com and lss@meridianassoc.com