Vancouver steel fabricators know this one simple truth: no matter how big or small the project, whatever the conditions you are working in, nothing beats precision, know-how and planning to succeed and deliver top-quality manufacture that lasts. Reputations depend on it; even more importantly, lives often depend on it, so you want to make sure every project that passes through your hands is a success.

Any good steel fabricator can deliver quality, but for a really successful project, you need to go above and beyond. To make your metal fabrication projects really stand out, you need to hit top marks for efficiency, costing and quality at the same time. Here are our tips for managing a successful fabrication project that helped us to earn a top reputation.

1: We get an accurate brief

It’s incredible how many projects are started before a fabricator really understands the client’s requirements in detail. Before we do anything – from sourcing materials to hiring specialists – we make sure to have a clear and detailed understanding of exactly what our client wants. To help us get that, we are first asking these questions:

What are you hoping to achieve with this construction?

This will help our team not only understand the requirements, but also help us advise the client if they have an unrealistic expectation, or if there are better, more efficient ways of doing the same thing.

How far forward does your future planning on this project go?

Too many projects are started to address an immediate need and don’t take any, or enough, forward-planning into account. If Rosh Metal has a clear picture of what our client is trying to address, we may be able to help them adjust plans to cater for the next five, ten, twenty or fifty years’ needs.

What are your time-frames on this?

As the professional steel fabricators in Vancouver, we always bear in mind that we are the expert at your job, and we are the ones who know what is possible and what isn’t. If our client has unreasonable expectations of how long a project should take, it’s easier to manage those expectations at the beginning of a project, than to do it halfway through. Spend time discussing these expectations with the client and give them a realistic picture of what’s going to happen.

Are there any unusual safety risks we need to know about?

Not every job takes place in a nice safe, secure environment, and the project may require more than the usual safety precautions. We need to know everything about the location of the project, including environmental factors, social influences, any potential political issues that could put our people and the project at risk and anything else that could have an effect.

2: Making sure we have the right tools for the job

This may sound like a no-brainer, but it never fails to astonish us when even the most experienced Vancouver steel fabricators use the wrong tool for the job. Technology is constantly marching forward, delivering innovations that can make fabrication job easier, quicker and better quality. At the same time, just because a tool or piece of new tech is brand-new doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to do the job better. So what to do?

Firstly, it pays to stay up-to-date with the latest developments. We subscribe to respected journals and trade publications and websites that give us honest, accurate news and reviews about current developments.

Secondly, Rosh Metal spends some time evaluating the requirements for the job at hand. We don’t make hasty decisions based on a sales pitch; rather assess whether this shiny new thing will add efficiency and quality to your build, or if it’s just going to add zeroes to the budget.

We always remember that we need to account for every aspect of the job, as well. It’s not simply a matter of having tools that work, it’s also a matter of making sure they will meet safety standards and deliver quality.

 

3: Delivering the best quality possible

Again, this sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s critical, so we’re mentioning it anyway. Everyone has heard horror stories of builds going terribly wrong, or disasters caused by someone, somewhere, taking a shortcut. Yes, we understand that saving costs is important, but this should never be at the potential expense of human life.

Consistently delivering excellent quality work earned us a positive reputation and this also gives us a “buying power”. In other words, the better we are at our job, the better collaborations we’re going to be able to leverage with other professionals and the stronger our bargaining position is going to be in terms of costs, materials and hiring the best people for the job.

4: Vancouver steel fabricators fine-tune the budget

We’re putting this one last because all the other factors are going to influence the budget. From acquiring materials to hiring top people to ensure quality build, everything needs to be accounted for as accurately as possible in the budget. We spend time fine-tuning the budget before quoting on a job and give our client a budget that comes as close to the final figure as you conceivably can.

This step is about more than just not having to argue about increasing costs later, though. The stronger reputation for coming in at or close to budget, the better budgetary planning we can offer to our clientele. Realistic and manageable expectations beat artificially reduced costs every time.

When we’re quoting the client, we also get very detailed on what the budget includes, and are open to explaining it. We prefer to justify why we need a specific contractor to do a particular job.

Rosh Metal puts in the planning needed to deliver a successful project right from the start. No matter how good a contractor at their job, planning failure can lead to anything from a minor setback to a full-scale disaster. While a setback is easy enough to handle, disasters aren’t, and it’s impossible to predict which could happen; with thorough planning, however, you can minimize your risks and give yourself the best possible chance of delivering a world-class project.