Clients occasionally ask us to skip shop drawings to save a week. We decline, and it is worth explaining why that week is the cheapest week in the whole programme.
What a shop drawing actually is
A consultant's structural drawing tells you what the finished structure must do. A shop drawing tells the workshop exactly what to cut, drill, bend and weld — every hole position, every weld size, every bolt grade, every piece mark. It is the translation layer between design intent and steel.
The errors it catches
- Connections that cannot physically be bolted because there is no access for a spanner.
- Members that clash with ductwork, cable tray or sprinkler runs shown on a different drawing set.
- Hole positions that do not match the concrete setting-out already cast on site.
- Sections specified in a size that carries a fourteen-week lead time when an equivalent is in stock.
- Weld details that cannot be executed in position at height.
What it costs to find these later
A clash found on a drawing is a redraw. The same clash found on site is a crane standing idle, a crew waiting, a piece cut out and re-fabricated, and a date missed. We have seen a single mis-set base plate group cost a client three weeks of programme.
We do not cut steel until drawings are signed. It is not bureaucracy — it is the single most effective cost control on the project.
How we run it
We issue shop drawings in PDF for markup and DWG for coordination, normally within five to ten working days of order depending on package size. You mark up, we revise, you sign. Only then does material get released to the shop floor. On fast-track projects we phase the approvals so fabrication can start on approved sections while later ones are still under review.
