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The buying decision

Two ways to buy a control panel, and what each costs you

You can send a complete design to a fabrication workshop and receive a panel built to it. That is the cheaper route and it works well when the design is finished, approved and unlikely to move. The workshop is not responsible for whether the design was right, and it will not be at site when the panel is energised.

Or you can buy the panel from the contractor who will install it, terminate it, commission it and stand at site acceptance. That party has a direct interest in gland plate layout, cable entry that matches the route the cables actually take, and terminal numbering that matches the as built schedule rather than the design one. A fault built in is a fault they come back for.

Almafor builds panels in its own workshop in Mussafah Industrial Area, Abu Dhabi, and then installs and commissions them. The section below covers what to check whichever route you choose.

Panel types

What we build

Motor control centres

Form 4 motor control centres for pumping and process plant, including starter, soft starter and variable frequency drive sections, with the metering and protection that goes with them.

VFD and drive panels

Variable frequency drive panels including medium voltage, with the thermal design and harmonic mitigation the duty requires. Drive replacement on running plant is a large part of this work.

ICA, RTU and PLC panels

Instrumentation and control panels, remote terminal unit cabinets for pipeline and irrigation sites, and PLC panels with the marshalling and IO conditioning around them.

SCMS and substation panels

Substation control and monitoring system cubicles, bay control unit panels, communication and fibre cabinets, and the inverter and auxiliary supply panels that support them.

Before you order

What to check before placing a panel order

  • Who owns the design, and who is liable if the schedule turns out to be wrong
  • Whether the enclosure form and the type test certification match what the specification actually calls for
  • Ambient design temperature and the thermal calculation, which matters more in the UAE than most standard designs assume
  • Ingress protection rating against where the panel will really sit, including roadside and plant room conditions
  • Whether a factory acceptance test with your engineers present is included or priced as an extra
  • Cable entry direction and gland plate layout against the actual cable route on site
  • Terminal numbering convention, and whether as built marking is included
  • Lead time on long lead components, stated separately from the build programme
  • Who attends site acceptance testing, and whether that is the same company

Track record

Panels built and commissioned

Panels for these contracts were built in our own workshop and commissioned by the same team.

See all 19 delivered projects →

Components

Component ranges we build with

Component selection normally follows the client specification and the asset owner's approved vendor list. These are the ranges we work with most.

  • Schneider Electric
  • Siemens
  • ABB
  • Hitachi Energy
  • GE Vernova
  • Allen Bradley
  • Caterpillar

Build process

How a panel leaves the workshop

  1. Design and general arrangement

    Schematics, general arrangement, IO schedule and bill of materials, issued for client and asset owner approval before any metal is cut.

  2. Fabrication and wiring

    Enclosure preparation, busbar, component mounting and wiring to the approved schematics, with terminal numbering agreed at design stage rather than invented on the bench.

  3. Configuration and power up

    Controllers and drives are loaded and the panel is powered in the workshop. Faults found here are cheap.

  4. Factory acceptance test

    Function tested against the approved schedule with your engineers present. Finding a wiring error in Mussafah costs an afternoon. Finding the same error in an energised substation costs an outage window.

  5. Delivery, installation and commissioning

    Transport, positioning, termination, loop checking and site acceptance, carried out by the people who built it.

Common questions

Questions we are asked about this

Where is your control panel workshop?

Workshop 13, Al Busnad 1 Street, M45, Mussafah Industrial Area, Abu Dhabi. Panels are built, configured, powered and function tested there before they go to site, and clients are welcome to attend the factory acceptance test.

Do you build panels to a design we supply?

Yes. We build to client and consultant designs as well as to our own. Where we see something in a supplied schedule that will cause a problem at site, we raise it before building rather than after, because we are usually the ones who will be terminating it.

What is a Form 4 panel?

Form 4 describes the degree of internal separation in a low voltage assembly, where busbars, functional units and terminals for outgoing circuits are separated from each other. It allows work on one outgoing way while others remain live, which is why it is commonly specified for motor control centres on plant that has to keep running.

How long does a control panel take to build?

The build itself is rarely the constraint. Design approval with the client and asset owner comes first, and long lead components, particularly drives and certain protection relays, often set the delivery date. We quote those two separately from the build programme so the critical path is visible.

Can you replace a panel on plant that has to stay running?

Yes. It is sequenced so the existing panel keeps the plant available until the new one is proved, with the changeover done inside outage windows agreed with the operator. This is how the substation and pump station replacements in our project list were carried out.

Related

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Emailinfo@almafor.com
Sales+971 55 954 5801
Technical+971 55 954 5802
Office+971 2 665 5540
Address
Office 4, Mezzanine 2, Dongfeng car showroom building, Khalifa Bin Zayed The First St
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

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