Epstein's Top 100 Projects: #35: Lufkin Industries

The largest project we’ve ever completed in Romania is no. 35 in our continued countdown of Epstein's Top 100 Projects.

For this project, the Lufkin Industries Oil Field Division Production Facility, Epstein provided DesignBuild services for a new 381,800-square-foot plant used to manufacture oil pumping units to Lufkin’s customers in the Middle East, Black Sea, Central Europe and Russia. The project consists of a 328,000-square-foot manufacturing and fabrication hall, a post production parts building for servicing existing equipment, an office building, a pump house and fire tank for the fire protection system, a paint storage building and two guardhouses.

With this location in Romania, Lufkin is now better able to deliver their oil field pump equipment to customers with a faster response and with lower delivered costs than they were previously due to the cost of shipment from the U.S. and their U.S.-based production. In addition to the manufacturing of their oil field pumps, the facility will also provide support and services to clients' oil pumping equipment, both Lufkin made and other original equipment manufacturer (OEM) made.

Lufkin’s manufacturing operations involve two major types of production processes that comprise the components of their oil pumps rigs: machining and fabrication. The fabrication process involves the receipt of structural steel shapes, including channels, beams, rod, bar and plate stock, at the covered steel storage yard. Here, these raw materials are stored and moved by crane to the plant entry rollers at the end of the fabrication bays for processing. Shapes are fed through the building's end wall into cutting lines, where the shapes are cut to length, sectioned, or cut into various shapes (plates) for making the basic materials required for the oil pump platform and structure. Cut parts are moved along to assembly stations where pump “horseheads,” frames, beams are welded up and combined into the subassembly parts of the oil pumps. At the end of the fabrication bays, the various component subassembly parts are loaded onto carts within the paint bay and ran through the shot blast booth for cleaning off of rust, weld scale, or the like in preparation for finish painting. Painting is done in the paint booth immediately following the shot blasting. Parts are then moved into the assembly bay where some parts will have bearings and other machined components installed following painting. These component parts are then assembled into larger platform assemblies, including the gear boxes, motors, controls, etc. in preparation for shipment.

The machining operations begin with raw material castings and round bar stock that are received and stored along the outside of the machine halls. Castings for gears and gearboxes stored outside the facility are brought into the machine halls from the side and moved to various machining operation stations based upon the sequence and types of machining that are required to produce the final part shapes. Round bar stock is used primarily for shafts, bearings and also for certain gears. The stock is cut to length and also moved to various machine centers for cutting and shaping to final shapes and configurations. Upon the completion of the part components for gear boxes the parts are moved to sub-assembly areas where the parts are fit together to form complete subassembly components (primarily gearboxes). Completed gear boxes are sealed, filled with oil and finish painted before being attached to oil pump platforms in preparation for shipment.

The main office building services as the administrative and plant management office location for the manufacturing operations. Functions within the building include management, administration, accounting, procurement/purchasing. This building includes private offices for management, conference rooms and open office space to accommodate the staff.

Lastly, Lufkin’s service center operations involve the service of Lufkin and other OEM-produced oil pump equipment and components both in the field and at the center. The majority of work out of the center is performed in the field where service technicians replace gearbox oil, lubricate bearings, and generally perform functions that keep the oil pumping equipment in service or provide minor field repairs to equipment. When there are major component problems components are removed from the oil pumps in the field and brought to the service center for making repairs. These repairs involve the cleaning and disassembly of the component followed by the repair or replacement of worn parts on the component. This could involve replacement of bearings, replacement of gears, machining of gearboxes, etc. Essentially the center is able to perform almost all of the machining operations as the manufacturing operations but on a smaller scale for component repair. The service center operation operates very independently from manufacturing operations and production side of the oil field business.