DESIGN REVIEWS

The design review activity is the predominant service provided by JBTC.  The design review is a detailed meeting between the client, the vendor, and JBTC to review all of the technical aspects of the transformer design.  A major initiative of the design review is to ensure compliance with the client specification, industry standards, and compliance with the vendor proposal.

The design review dives into the details of the vendor’s design process and the analytic capabilities and methods used in the design process.  This is important to understand the state of the vendor’s technology development.  A part of this design review is also to quantify the experience level of the vendor with the type of transformer being reviewed as well as the extent to which the vendor has experience with the U.S. market, i.e. an experience list of customers.

The design review meeting has typically been conducted at the vendor’s facility or the client’s office.  However, as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, it has been necessary to accommodate design reviews by remote meetings.  Remote design review meetings have actually been very effective.  It may be that this process may be a “new normal” as meetings in this way can save time and money.  The vendors have been able to bring multiple resources from their organization into the meeting to provide valuable technical input whereas this may not have been possible in all cases with past practice.

JBTC has found the design review to be very helpful for the client.  Problems have been highlighted during the design review that would have otherwise been unknown until a n anomaly occurred in service.  Many vendors have also expressed the advantages of having a design review as it puts more sets of eyes on the design.  Catching design problems in the paper study portion of the transformer manufacturing cycle is much more cost and time effective.