Patent ID: 8886348

Claim:
An automated method of fabrication of a portion of an electrical system to be installed in a building, the building having been designed and being represented by a building information model defining geometric and positional details of the portion of the electrical system within the building, the method comprising: preparing, at a computing device and by the computing device, instructions for a fabrication machine to fabricate a bent pipe component of the electrical system, the preparing comprising: extracting, from the building information model, coordinate data defining the geometry of an electrical conduit pipe run within the building; defining constituent components of the pipe run wherein the constituent components include at least the bent pipe component and wherein defining the constituent components is based on a selected raw pipe length, the length of the pipe run, and effects of bends in the pipe run on required raw pipe length, wherein the effects of bends includes: locations of the bends; and effects of one of gain, shrink, or take-up for each bend in the pipe run; selecting a pre-fabricated pipe length for the bent pipe component; and preparing fabrication machine instructions in fabrication machine language to fabricate the bent pipe component, the fabrication machine instructions including instructions to feed a pipe a first distance defining a location of the pipe bend and instructions to bend the pipe to a bend radius; receiving, at the fabrication machine, the fabrication machine instructions; receiving, at the fabrication machine, a pipe having a length equal to or greater than the pre-fabricated pipe length; and fabricating, by the fabrication machine and according to the machine instructions, the bent pipe component.