Key Points to a Successful Structural Steel Fabrication

19 November 2018

Successful steel fabrication projects provide the best possible structure erecting skillsets. Think of the two-dimensional engineering professionalism, where rough sketches are turned into detailed blueprints and finely detailed workpieces. If anything, a top-tier structural steel fabrication project adheres to a staircase-like production cycle. At each step, smaller, rougher job phases are finessed and taken to the next level, where they’re again refined.

Steel Fabrication Success: The Key Points 

The bottom step of this hypothetical flight of steps contains the initial construct sketch. This is the ideation phase. The sketch is transformed into a blueprint, the engineers discuss whether the idea is viable, they visit the site to check crane access points, and the gears of work begin to spin. Hopping up a step, the logistics team plans and schedules the various jobs. There are work duties to assign, fabrication floor foremen to talk to, and resources to buy. One key point at this moment that does stand out is this: The blueprints don’t lead directly to the worksite. Remember, this is a structural steel fabrication job, and things are done differently in this workshop setting.

The Blueprint to Shop Drawing Approach 

With the ideas transformed into viable engineering blueprints, we need to get them down to the fabricators and welders. The equipment requires retooling. If a certain steel gauge is bought in, the drills will require tungsten carbide bits while the bending machines receive calibration. It’s in here that the blueprints are dispensed and adapted, so they become reinterpreted shop drawings. And that’s just the beginning. The steps, doing what all steps must do, climb upwards. The shop drawings direct tool profiling processes. Two-dimensional structural elements are cut to size and welded to parts that are designed to be erected. Lo-and-behold, the framework becomes a three-dimensional construct. Large and unwieldy now, a shop hoist manipulates its beams and plates.

As a key points abbreviator, check out the following list:

• Steel fabrication duties require a quality-assurance officer
• Project management teams are mandated
• Obey customer deadlines and demands
• Safely build a cost-effective structure

Last, but by no means least, the topmost steps take the finished framework to the site. Onsite welders, recently re-certified, install the structure. Structural engineers are on hand to direct everything. Crane operators and perfectly maintained cranes manipulate the steel elements. Even the transportation system has received considerable attention here, so the assembled parts were cushioned and strapped down as they left the fabrication shop. All-in-all, optimally configured structural steel fabrication projects use this step-by-step approach to absolutely ensure a quality assured end-phase construct.