Ensuring Fabrication Quality: 7 Questions to Ask Your Custom Structural Steel Fabricator

What are the questions to ask your custom structural steel fabricator?

1. How do you hire your staff and fabricators?
2. What is your level of experience?
3. What do you specialize in?
4. What is your capacity?
5. What are your processes?
6. What equipment do you utilize? 
7. Do you have in-house finishing?

There is no way to build a project—big or small—without the use of custom structural steel. However, structural steel fabrication can be an especially complicated procedure. The effectiveness and quality of the structural steel parts are limited without the right fabricator. It is important to know about the questions to ask a custom structural steel fabricator. 

A structural steel fabricator can cut, bend, and assemble versatile parts of steel, transforming them into components that match your project needs. As the success of a project will depend on the durability and quality of materials and processes, you will want to work with the right structural steel fabricator. This is especially important if you have a complicated project with multiple stakeholders and strict deadlines.

With the wrong structural steel fabricator, small errors can snowball into more costly, wide-scale problems. Here are seven questions to ask your custom structural steel fabricator. 

How Do You Hire Your Staff And Fabricators? 

The right custom structural steel fabricator should be able to indicate guidelines on how the company locates its fabricators. Ask about the hiring process the company uses. If the policies are clear on hiring only certified fabricators, it is a good indicator that their work comes out with quality. 

At Astron Metal Works, we highly uphold the quality of finished products and services rendered. Thus, you can be assured that we hire certified and dedicated teams of engineers, project supervisors, safety officers, and office personnel to cater to your construction needs.

What Is Your Level Of Experience?

Custom structural steel fabricators who have extensive experience in the metal fabrication industry are aware of the best practices and materials for producing quality structural steel projects. 

The number of years in business is a good measure of experience. The older the company, chances are, the more established the team is. 

When a structural steel fabricator has a high-level of experience, it is likely that they have successfully worked on projects in the past that are similar to yours as well. Ask about the past clients they have worked with.

At Astron Metal Works, we boast of 45 years of experience. Through this, we identified the best practices to produce high-quality structural steel products. This also enables our team to successfully serve a wide array of multinational clients from diverse industries such as dairy, food and beverage manufacturing companies, petroleum, construction, and consumer good companies.

Some of our clients include Ayala Land, Amaia, SMDC, Okada, Solaire, Lazada, Pilipinas Shell, Total, Unioil, Petron, Nestle Philippines, San Miguel Corporation, Magnolia, Monde Nissin, Alaska, Silver Swan, and many more.  

What Do You Specialize In?

Does the custom structural steel fabricator you are considering specialize in your project type? Custom structural steel projects are multi-faceted and require meticulous attention to detail. It’s important to find a fabricator that can handle the steel grade, type, and procedure accuracy needed for your project. 

If you ask about what the fabricators specialize in, your project will be more efficient as the fabricator fully understands the project requirements. It is also possible that the fabricator will present ideas that could improve your project. 

What Is Your Capacity?

Ask about their capacity as well. One common problem that custom structural steel fabricators face is the inability to meet the high volume demand of clients. If you have a large project, you will need a large workforce as well.

What Are Your Processes?

It is important to ask this question as different fabricators make use of different processes. Some custom structural steel fabricators prefer manual processing over machine fabrication, which can impact the quality and efficiency of your project. 

Inquire about the safety processes and standards the custom steel fabricator adheres to as well. This makes it less likely to create fabrication mistakes that lead to compromising structural integrity. 

At Astron Metal Works, we understand that you expect only the best as a client. To receive this, we make use of highly efficient processes. We offer shearing, bending, sheet metal rolling, dishing, punching, assembly, and CNC Cutting Services in the Philippines.

Our work begins by aiding our client’s project design plan. Since each product is customized, clients approve our proposed design before fabrication begins. For high-volume items, we provide mock-ups before production to test the design quality and eliminate errors. Then, our highly-equipped teams use state-of-the-art machines for end products.   

What Equipment Do You Utilize? 

It is wise to choose fabricators based on the equipment they utilize. Asking this question will help you identify whether the custom structural steel parts could be delivered with quality and on time or not.

For instance, custom structural steel fabricators that invest in advanced equipment are more likely to produce and deliver products on time, increasing productivity and enhancing quality all at a lower cost for a client. Fabricators that continue to function with outdated equipment to save money can put themselves at a great disadvantage.

Having steel materials of top-notch quality will be a waste if the equipment used cannot process them effectively. 

Do You Have In-House Finishing?

It’s advantageous to seek out custom structural steel fabricators who deliver the finished product to you, exactly the way you want. In-house finishing ensures superior quality products compared to outsourcing. This is because the fabricators who designed and assembled the project will know which type of finishing will be best for your project. 

Key Takeaway

We have rounded up seven questions to ask a custom structural steel fabricator. Never settle for a fabricator that does not use high-quality equipment and processes, and always ensure that the personnel is highly experienced. 

It is not an easy task, but if you could identify a reliable structural steel fabricator, you can rest assured that your projects are built with efficiency and quality in mind.

If you are ready to work with a top-notch custom structural steel metal fabricator, contact Astron Metal. We are ready to answer all your concerns and guarantee your structures are built excellently. Click here to get in touch with us today!