MegChem Cuts Plant Design Timelines by 60% Using CADWorx and BricsCAD
MegChem, a South African multidisciplinary engineering firm, offers comprehensive services including piping, mechanical, electrical, and civil engineering, alongside scanning, process design, instrumentation, and project management. The company capitalizes on decades of expertise to deliver complex projects such as plant renewals, modifications and process improvements.
As the company began taking on larger and more demanding projects, it identified limitations in its software. In 2011 MegChem adopted Hexagon’s CADWorx Plant Professional to improve scalability and execution. Local partner Chempute provided support for catalog creation, line class specifications, training and installation. Within two months, CADWorx was fully deployed.
The results materialized rapidly. Designers could work together in the same model space and see updates in real time. Integration with CAESAR II enabled stress analysis directly from the model with changes reimported, which helped reduce rework. CADWorx ran on BricsCAD, MegChem’s preferred DWG-based CAD platform, creating a stable environment for daily design work and long-term projects.
Collectively, these improvements delivered a reported 60-percent productivity increase in design work.
A Rebuild That Left No Time for Delays
The combination of CADWorx, BricsCAD and CAESAR II proved crucial to meet the challenges of a major rebuilding project.
In July 2020, an explosion at a large industrial facility damaged a critical unit during start-up. The plant had already been offline since February, and the priority was to restore operations quickly. MegChem was tasked with designing and executing a rebuild under extremely compressed timelines.
Traditional plant redesign projects can take 18 to 24 months. The scope here included creating an entirely new section of the plant while integrating it with structures that had survived the blast. To achieve this, MegChem relied fully on its digital toolset. A high-resolution 3D laser scan of the site provided point-cloud data of the surviving structures, which was then imported into CADWorx as an exact spatial reference. New equipment, piping and civil works were designed to fit within this framework to millimeter accuracy.
Design files were sent to CAESAR II for stress analysis, with modifications reimported seamlessly into CADWorx. This eliminated communication lags and avoided manual redrawing. The central 3D model became a live hub for collaboration across Secunda, Cape Town and London, allowing real-time design reviews with clients and faster decision-making.
The model went beyond design to generate bulk Bills of Materials, isometric drawings, layout plans, lifting studies, scaffolding plans and walkthroughs. As a result, what would normally have taken two years was completed in under nine months.
The Quiet Compounding Effect of Faster Design Cycles
The speed and efficiency of the rebuild demonstrated the value of Hexagon’s tools. MegChem cut modeling time by up to 25 percent and reduced the time needed to finalize isometric drawings by as much as 60 percent. Managers highlight how 3D models have evolved from being drafting aids to becoming essential communication tools. Clients overseas can now review pipe routing in real time, and risks are identified before they reach construction sites.
MegChem credits the software suite with improving collaboration and client satisfaction, while also strengthening its position in the market. Being able to deliver large-scale projects under tight deadlines has given the firm an advantage in speed, flexibility and quality. The company also recognizes the support of Chempute, which provides responsive assistance and ensures software-related issues are resolved quickly.
Today MegChem considers CADWorx, BricsCAD and CAESAR II central to its engineering practice. By streamlining design processes and enabling high-precision integration, the tools allow the company to deliver safer, faster and more efficient projects. What began as a response to larger workloads and more complex projects has now become a foundation of its engineering approach and of its competitive advantage.