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Two months ago, we sent the bill of material for a 750-ton job to six supply warehouses to firm up pricing. Combined, those six could cover only about 75 % of what we needed. A fabricator our size can normally get almost anything from a warehouse within a week or two. Not anymore. The supply houses told us every North American mill rolling domestic product was sold out through the end of the year. Two weeks ago, that became sold out through the first quarter. Over our combined 80 years in the industry, my partner and I have witnessed structural steel fluctuate up and down but usually hover around the 70-80 cents per lb base costs from suppliers. Today it sits at about $ 1.40, and the mills are sending increase letters weekly.
Over our combined 80 years in the
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causes rushed and more“ safe” estimates resulting in higher cost to the owner.
On a steel scope, around 80 % of the cost happens at the end, during fabrication and erection. But 80 % of the time is consumed up front by the bid process / design / coordination / RFI / shop drawing approval processes. In my experience, 90 % to 95 % of overruns on a steel scope trace back to schedule conflicts, not the metal itself.
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contract signing.
Here is my offer to owners, CMs and GCs: Trust ASF to help with your budget, then sign us up to start working on your shop drawings while you are finishing your design. We will share every supplier invoice, and if material climbs, we pass it through at zero markup. We are not trying to profit from a macroeconomic problem.
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We are trying to solve it. Steel keeps rising in price, but time is still the most valuable resource in this industry.
Read the full article online at www. high-profile. com / time-is-worth-morethan-steel-why-owners-should-buy-outtheir-fabricator-early /.
Peter Sirois is principal, American Steel Fabricators.
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industry, my partner and I have
witnessed structural steel fluctuate
up and down but usually hover
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around the 70-80 cents per lb base
costs from suppliers. Today it sits at
about $ 1.40, and the mills are sending
increase letters weekly.
The reasons are a perfect storm. Data center construction is the biggest driver. Tariffs mean imported material offers no relief on cost, and ships take months to arrive. On a 250-ton job at a military base, the owner had to waive the domestic requirement because domestic steel simply was not available.
Where the damage shows up:
Had the 250-ton project been awarded two or three months earlier, the owner would likely have saved well over $ 100,000 on raw material alone. That is the cost of waiting.
The traditional model is design, bid, wait, then build in a rush. Overbidding
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What early engagement looks like:
The fix is simple: single-source the fabricator and purchase the steel early, the way owners already pre-buy long-lead mechanical and electrical equipment. Steel now belongs in that category. The mindset of a fabricator changes once it’ s an awarded job from how do I hit this bid deadline with a safe enough number so I have enough to build it fast, to how do we build this job the most cost effective way and get it ready for fabrication long before it’ s needed in the field. As an owner, you want that mind working for you as soon as possible.
One missed opportunity on a past competitive bid project would have been switching roughly 400 parapet posts from 5 × 5 to 4 × 4 tube to save the owner approximately $ 40,000. The GC’ s answer: too late to submit the RFI. That conversation happens on nearly every project. Compare that to a life sciences rooftop mechanical unit support dunnage job where the owner called before the engineer had put pencil to paper. Our detailer modeled alongside the engineer of record, our connection details went into the design set, and approval became a rubber stamp. This project, originally budgeted at $ 500,000, was built for $ 300,000 and finished five weeks after
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Beyond the Blueprint
continued from page 42
issue for our industry, and the aging workforce is a big part of it. The average licensed plumber in Massachusetts is around 56 years old. We’ re losing a lot of people who have spent 30 or 40 years in the trade. That experience is incredibly valuable. You can teach someone how to read a drawing or install a pipe, but there’ s no substitute for having seen thousands of different situations in the field. At the same time, the younger generation is bringing a different skill set. They’ re much more comfortable with computers, software and technology. So I think the future is really about combining the two— experienced plumbers passing along their field knowledge while younger people bring technology skills into the trade. Organizations like PHCC are also doing a lot to promote the trades through school programs, career fairs and other outreach. We need to continue showing young people that the skilled trades can be a very good career.
AB: Looking ahead, what do you think will have the biggest impact on
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commercial plumbing over the next five to 10 years?
BO: I think one of the biggest challenges is going to be replacing the experience we’ re losing as plumbers retire. We’ re losing people who have spent decades learning not just the technical side of plumbing, but the practical side— how to troubleshoot a problem, how to work around an existing system and how to recognize something that doesn’ t look right before it becomes a major problem.
For a long time, the trades were often viewed as a second choice compared with going to a four-year college. That resulted in fewer young people entering the trades, and now we’ re seeing the consequences as that older generation starts to retire. Technology is going to continue changing the way we design, estimate and manage projects. But technology can’ t replace experience. The companies that can combine that experience with a strong younger workforce are going to be in a good position to handle what comes next.
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www. high-profile. com |