Follow every beam, column and bolt from detail drawing to erected frame.

A fabricator makes columns, rafters, purlins, trusses and platforms to a set of detail drawings. Every piece carries a mark. Marks are small. Mistakes are not. Every mark belongs to a drawing revision, a heat of steel and a place in the erection sequence.

When those facts sit in spreadsheets and drawing folders, the shop fabricates from an old revision or ships the wrong bay first. Software for structural steel fabricators keeps the piece list, the material and the dispatch plan in one record.

The package starts with general arrangement and detail drawings, issued in revisions as the engineer and the client change their minds. The detailer produces a bill of material by section and plate. The buyer orders beams, channels, angles and plate against it, and the mill certificate arrives with each heat. Plate and sections are cut, drilled and punched on beam lines and burning tables, then fitted up against a template, tack welded, checked for squareness and welded by the crew. Larger members are blasted and primed.

Bolts, washers, cleats and base plates travel as loose items with their own lists. Trucks are loaded in erection order, so the first column bay goes first. The engineer at the site counts what arrives, and writes down every shortage, every dent and every piece that came without its tag. Shortages, damage in transit and late revisions all end in phone calls. Billing follows the tonnage fabricated and delivered. Weights must be right.