Steel Shop Drawings

Why is fabrication shop drawings such an essential part of construction industry?

Chandresh Chudasama
Building Information Modeling
2 min readJul 15, 2021

--

Shop drawings act as a firm base for the fabrication industry. This contains a set of drawings used by the contractor, fabricator and manufacturers. The details present in the drawings help in the overall detailing in the project.

Steel Fabrication drawings show various views and sections with its standards, dimensions, measurements, welding and bolting information. All this information helps in the whole workflow by making it simple and smoother. It eases the process of erection and fabrication and helps the team in many ways. They act as a consultant to the fabricators. A shop drawing when created properly and accurately can be very useful for the architects as well.

Steel Shop Drawings
Steel Shop Drawings — Archdraw Outsourcing

Characteristics Steel shop drawings:

  • Shop drawings, if compared to construction documentation, are more detailed and provide information to the fabricators and contractors for erection, installation and fabrication.
  • Shop drawings are used for the fabrication of several elements that are used in the construction.
  • Shop drawings can be considered as a step wise manual that comes handy at many times. They contain an immense amount of details to aid the processes.
  • Steel shop drawings have comprehensive details of each of the specific elements like the designs, dimensions, bill of materials, and other methods.

Shop drawings consists of:

Information for comparison: The engineers and architects use such drawings in comparing the specifications and other features pertaining to the fabrication. They help in the performance and appearance of the construction drawings.

Difference from the CD set: Shop drawings contain all the alterations and modifications that are done. These changes of information are not present in the actual construction documents and hence, are different from the.

Verification of the specifications: The shop drawings give better suggestions on the differences of dimension or any other specification from the actual construction drawings. This is important for the on-site installations of fabricated items. This ensures that the products are ready to be erected at the site.

Steel fabrication drawings used for making:

Anchor plans and layout plans
Steel erection drawings
Structural details such as beams, stairs, ladder, columns, joints, frame etc.

With the developments in the construction industry, the lead time increases as the schedules become restricted. For this purpose, steel fabrication drawings are very much useful. With the use of proper software these drawings can result in efficiency.

There is a lot of competition in the industry but the right selection of an agency to provide the required drawing can be beneficial. A quality steel fabrication shop drawing made by an expert team brings in effectiveness.

--

--

Chandresh Chudasama
Building Information Modeling

I am CEO at Archdraw Outsourcing which provides AutoCAD and Revit Services such as CAD Drafting, 3D Modeling, BIM, 3D Rendering, CAD Conversion, BIM Conversion.