Manufacturing
with the details that matter.
Line moves, cranes, steel, and overhead utilities. We pair the capture method to the way your team will use the result.
What needs to be
measured first?
Plant floors change constantly and the drawings rarely keep up. We capture the structure, the overhead services, and the equipment envelopes together, so a line move can be planned against real clearances instead of the original 1970s layout.
Every facility has a different risk surface. We start with access, geometry density, and the decision the capture needs to unlock — then choose between laser scanning, drone mapping, or both.
Talk through a scope- Line moves
- Crane rails
- Foundations
- Overhead utilities
- Equipment install
- Retrofit planning
Scanning a plant floor without stopping the line
A production plant gets captured in layers, because the geometry that matters sits at three different heights and each one needs a different setup density. The order below is the one that survives contact with a working shift: the fixed things first, the things that move last.
Column grid and shell
Control goes in first, tied to the plant's own column grid rather than an arbitrary local system, because a line move gets laid out against column lines. Perimeter walls, bay spacing, and floor elevation across the bay give every later setup something rigid to register against.
Equipment envelopes and foundations
Machine bases, anchor patterns, pits, trenches, and the swept volume of anything that opens, tilts, or indexes. The envelope matters more than the machine: a press that fits its footprint but not its own die-change clearance is still a failed install.
Crane runways and rail steel
Rail-to-rail span, hook approach, bridge and trolley position, runway beam elevation, and any visible sag in it. Crane geometry is close to impossible to tape by hand and is the first thing that kills a tall equipment install.
Overhead services
Compressed air headers, steam and condensate, dust collection ductwork, sprinkler mains, bus duct, cable tray, and the lighting grid. These are what a new mezzanine or conveyor run collides with, not the roof deck above them.
The route in
The path a new machine takes from the truck to its pad: door openings, turning radii, floor level changes, mezzanine underclearance, and the fixed obstructions along the way. Rigging plans fail on doorway width far more often than on crane capacity.
Working around a running shift
Most plant capture happens while production runs. Setups take a few minutes each and the crew moves along a planned route, so the practical constraint is forklift and tow-motor traffic rather than noise or light. Aisle crossings, marked walkways, and any area needing a spotter get agreed before the first setup, and we work to your lockout/tagout rules rather than around them.
Changeovers, shift breaks, and planned maintenance days are the highest-value windows, because guards come off and the interior of a cell becomes visible. Where a cell stays enclosed, that goes in the coverage note rather than leaving a modeler to guess what sits behind the fence. Confined space rules for pits and hoppers, hot work permits, and hearing and eye protection requirements shape the schedule more than the scanning does.
More on how this works in practice is on our guide to scanning without a shutdown.
Which deliverable a line move actually needs
Plants rarely need everything modeled. The question is which decision the data has to survive, and most projects want one zone at fabrication detail with the rest as measurable context.
| The decision | What to ask for | Why that one |
|---|---|---|
| Moving or adding a production line | Point cloud plus 2D plans and sections | Layout work happens against column lines and clear heights, which a measurable drawing answers faster than a model does. |
| Replacing one machine in a congested cell | Point cloud with a single modeled zone | Only the interference envelope needs modeling; the rest is context a millwright can measure directly in the cloud. |
| Adding a mezzanine, conveyor, or overhead run | Revit or IFC model of structure and services | New steel has to clash against real duct, pipe, and crane travel, and clash detection needs modeled solids. |
| Building a record for capital planning | Point cloud plus as-built plans, updated per project | A maintained record beats a one-off survey in a building that changes every year. |
Formats and what each one is good for are covered on the deliverables page.
What gets missed in a plant scan
- Capturing at eye level only — A tripod set for the floor sees the underside of everything and the top of nothing. Crane rails, the tops of ducts, and roof-deck penetrations need elevated setups, or they arrive in the model as an assumption.
- Skipping the pit — Pits, trenches, sumps, and below-floor foundations cause more redesigns than anything above the slab, because they are invisible from standing height and rarely drawn correctly. They also usually need a permit arranged before mobilization, not during it.
- No tie to the plant grid — Coordinates that only make sense inside the scan file force everyone downstream to re-establish layout. Registering to the existing column grid and a documented benchmark makes the data usable by a millwright with a total station.
- Polished and dark surfaces — Machine guarding, polished stainless, black rubber, and anything wet return weak or noisy data. Those areas want closer setups, and they should be identified on the walk rather than discovered during registration.
What plant engineers ask us
Do we have to stop production?
Usually not. The scanner is tripod-mounted and quiet, and the crew moves through the plant like someone carrying a survey instrument. What we need is a route, an escort where your rules require one, and agreement on which aisles can be crossed. Anything only visible with a guard off or a machine stopped gets picked up during a changeover.
Can you measure crane rail alignment and hook height?
Runway span, rail elevation, beam position, and hook approach come out of the same capture as everything else, provided we can reach elevated setups or clear line of sight to the runway. Whether the result supports a rail alignment repair or only clearance planning depends on the tolerance the decision needs, which is worth settling before we mobilize.
Our drawings are from the 1970s. Is that a problem?
No, and they are still worth sending. Old drawings tell us what the building was, which makes it much faster to see what changed and where to concentrate setups. After the capture, the point cloud becomes the record and the drawings become the history.
Can you reverse engineer a machine part from this?
A building-scale capture records envelopes and interfaces, not machined detail. A casting, fixture, or wear part is close-range object scanning — a different instrument, a different setup, and a separate line in the scope from the plant work.
Pair TLS interiors with drone exteriors for one coordinate story.
Roof, yard, tanks, structures, and the building envelope can live in the same project handoff when the control is planned upfront.
See existing conditionsMake the invisible
measurable.
Tell us what is inside, outside, and on the line. We will help you scope the capture and the handoff — in New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut.
Request a scan quote