In this guide 6 sections
Spreadsheets suit a small precast yard running one or two casting beds, where the manager can still hold the whole picture in their head. Once planks, strand, moulds and erection dates depend on each other, a linked system wins, because one change updates the bed schedule, the strand pull and the truck sequence. Sheets make you re-key each.
What a hollowcore yard has to juggle
A hollowcore plant casts long beds and saw-cuts planks to length after curing, so each bed mixes planks for several different projects, each with its own depth. Each plank has its own strand pattern.
The production manager balances four things: which bed is free, which strand is on the reel, which planks the site needs first, and which truck can carry them.
None of these is hard alone. The difficulty is how they move together.
Where spreadsheets hold up
A single sheet with one tab per bed can run a small yard well, because the manager knows the crew and sees every bed each morning. The cost is low. Everyone already knows how to open it.
Sheets also bend easily. Adding a column for a special camber, a core fill or a cut-out takes a minute at the keyboard, with no vendor involved.
The limit is the person. When the manager is on leave, the logic of the sheet goes with them, and the cover has to rebuild it from cell comments and memory.
Where spreadsheets start to fail
Trouble starts when the same fact lives in several tabs, such as a plank length that changes when an engineer revises a drawing. The bed tab is updated, but the strand sheet and the dispatch list stay as they were until the saw operator finds the mismatch.
Moulds and end formers come next. A sheet can list them but cannot warn you that two beds need the same former on the same night, which the crew discovers at the bed.
Erection sequencing is the third gap, because a crane crew on site needs planks in the order of the floor plan, not the order of casting. Hand sorting each load invites errors.
- Drawing revisions copied into one tab but not the others
- Strand reel balance kept on a separate sheet
- Mould and former clashes found at the bed, not the desk
- Load lists sorted by hand into erection order
- No record of which plank came from which bed and date
What a linked system does differently
In a linked system a plank is one record, holding project, mark number, length, strand pattern, bed, cast date, cut date, load and erection zone. Change the length and every view updates.
The bed planner shows free beds and warns when a strand pattern needs a reel that is nearly empty, while the yard view shows which planks are cured. Dispatch builds each load in erection order.
Traceability sits here too, so when a site queries a plank you can show its bed, cast date and test results within seconds.
Deciding for your own yard
Count the weekly errors you can trace to re-keying or a stale tab, and count the hours spent rebuilding load lists each week. Climbing numbers mean the sheet is spent.
Do not move everything at once. Start with the plank record and the bed schedule, then add moulds and erection sequencing once the team trusts the first two records.
Sit with the production manager and list every sheet that holds a plank length, because each extra sheet is one more place for a revision to go missing. More than two means link it first.
Spreadsheet or system scorecard
The scorecard has ten rows, each a question about the yard, such as how many sheets hold plank length or how load lists are sorted. Three columns hold the answer, a score from zero to two and whoever maintains that sheet, so gaps in ownership show up straight away. A total line at the bottom shows whether to stay on sheets, link the plank record, or move the full flow of work to software.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
How many casting beds is too many for a spreadsheet?
No set count applies, so a better test is how often a change in one tab must be copied to others by hand. Daily copying is your signal.
Can we keep our drawing software and still link production?
Usually yes, because the drawing package stays the source of mark numbers and lengths and those details are imported into the production record so nobody re-keys them.
What do we lose by staying on sheets?
Mostly time and traceability. You rebuild load lists and strand pulls by hand, and tracing a plank back to its bed and cast date depends on someone remembering.
Is moving to software disruptive for a yard that runs daily?
It need not be, because you can start with one record type, run it beside the sheet for weeks and widen only once the team trusts it.