“Eight weeks!? How in the world can it take eight weeks from the time you guys come measure to get my panels on-site?” Most of us in the metal architecture industry have heard something like this from countless general contractors. Maybe your particular product is turned around quicker and the lead time is different, but the song remains the same … GC’s expect materials on-site nearly as soon as an area is framed.
“You see, Mr. Contractor, as the last trade on a project, we are often charged with correcting the mistakes of others. The steel is obviously way out of line, but the owner and architect surely want a flat surface, right? Well, that burden falls to us … the last guys on the job. We are the reason walls look perfectly smooth. We are the ones burdened with altering our product because someone else couldn’t get theirs right. We are the ones measuring and scanning walls and cornices and columns and implementing sometimes wildly varying dimensions into already completed AutoCAD drawings.”
It is worth noting that many general contractors are understandably not informed as to the extensive processes involved in producing architectural metal panels and are agreeable to our lead times once they learn what’s involved. There are many, many steps (too many and too boring to list here) to produce our product to tolerances of 1/16-inch and these steps take time (usually weeks). I remember one time when we hosted a project manager from a local GC to tour our shop while panels for his project were in the fabrication stage. He was surprised to see that they are hand folded, and that the extrusions and stiffeners are attached by hand. He told us he had been under the impression that they “simply come out of a machine.”
We would be absolutely delighted to produce our panels off of shop drawing dimensions rather than field dimensions. In fact, probably few things in the world would make our project managers and draftsmen happier. However, as long as framers erect substrates with poor attention to detail, the only thing that can be done is to wait a few weeks to get a building dried in.
Scott Stafford is the head estimator at The Miller- Clapperton Partnership Inc. in Austell, Ga. For more information, visit www.millerclapperton.com.