Need assistance for a fabrication quote

[arunmrao]

I have been challenged to produce a barge weighing 24000lbs at a cost of 13500USD.Material of construction is A36 plates.and estimated man hours is 320. The requirement is for 100 such pieces. I am a casting person but do occasionally take up such assignments to just keep me active.My question is,whether such a fabrication is possible at the costs mentioned.

My current exposure will be 13500 USD and I do not mind taking this risk to learn something different.

I keep my fingers crossed regarding tooling,fixturing and perhaps a pressure testing rig to check for leakages.

 

[metengr]

arunmrao;
About 2 years ago we had a fleet of coal barges fabricated by vendor, and some of the following questions come to mind. Do you have welding equipment in your shop to handle this type of fabrication work, like FCAW or GMAW? Do you have some in-house engineering expertise to produce detailed fabrication drawings for the barges? Also, does your customer have requirements for specifying a recognized ship building code (like ABS in the US) to construct the barges?

Most of the cost in addition to material will be engineering time, plate bending and welding with some outsourcing of nondestructive testing.

 

[arunmrao]

metengr,
I do not mind investing in some of the welding equipments. Yes I have inhouse expertise to produce detailed fabrication drawings. I just received a communication that the buyer would send a technical person to guide us through 2-3 units .

As I have some time to spare and also that I have enough of power and open space available in my foundry I thought of venturing out.Incidentally I also supply castings to this company.

 

[dik]

Your fabricated cost is approximately $(13500/24000) per pound... I wish you luck.

Dik

 

[weldtek]

dik,
Is that cost for the space shuttle?

 

[dik]

I didn't have my calculator handy... about 60 cents/lb... which I think is likely 1/2 the cost... but I don't know...

As far as the shuttle goes... likely a fraction of the cost per pound!

Dik

 

[MintJulep]

I didn't have my calculator handy

You're sitting in front of a computer!

 

[MintJulep]

What do you expect to pay for steel in India these days and what do you pay your workers?

At US prices pushing $500/ton (

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/manufacturing/2004-02-20-steel_x.htm

) you are looking at $6000/barge in material alone.

That leaves you about $23/hr for labor.

Couldn't do it in the US.

 

[arunmrao]

Thanks mintjulep! I was looking out for some comparative numbers. The price of steel here is 760$/ton,however the fabrication cost is 333$/ton. The cost comes to approximately 1100$/ton,while the cutomer has offered a price of 1240$/ton. It was this back of the envelope calculation and my gut feeling that I can do it prompted me to accept the order.

Since the order is for 1000tons fabrication over a period of 1 year,any money that I could get is pocket money. My casting business supports all the infrastructure costs.