Quotations you can actually compare
Structural steel fabrication and erection, quoted with tonnage, coating specification and erection as separate lines — because a single lump sum hides the coating, and the coating is where the difference usually is.
Scope of works
Four packages. We quote them separately so you can award them separately.
Fabrication
Beams, columns, trusses and built-up sections to your drawings or ours. Shop drawings issued for approval before cutting, which is the stage that prevents most site problems and the one most often skipped.
Surface treatment
Blast cleaning to Sa 2½ and painting to the specified system, with dry film thickness recorded per member. This is the line that varies most between quotations and the one nobody reads.
Erection
Site erection with our own crews and hired cranage, sequenced against your civil programme. We will tell you if the programme is not achievable before signing rather than claim extensions afterwards.
Documentation
Mill test certificates, weld procedure records, DFT logs and as-built drawings, handed over as a set. Chasing these after handover is the most common reason a retention stays unpaid.
Shop capability
The figures a consultant asks for on the first call.
Certification and compliance
Certificates are issued with every quotation, not on request afterwards.
General construction in steel — the code every member is designed and fabricated to.
Quality management, audited annually. Certificate number on every quotation.
Occupational health and safety, covering our own erection crews.
All 32 welders qualified to procedure under IS 817, records available per joint.
How we tender
Four steps. The second is where most quotations in this trade become incomparable.
Drawings and take-off
We take off tonnage from your drawings and tell you what we have assumed. If a connection detail is missing we ask rather than price around it, which is the usual source of a variation later.
Itemised quotation
Fabrication, coating and erection as separate lines with the coating system named. A lump sum is available on request and we will say plainly that it is harder to compare.
Shop drawings
Issued for your consultant’s approval before any cutting. Nothing is fabricated against an unapproved drawing, however tight the programme, because rework in steel is expensive in both directions.
Fabricate, coat, erect
Against an agreed sequence, with DFT and weld records kept as we go rather than reconstructed at handover.
Two bays, thirty-two welders, one programme board
The shop is two bays under ten-tonne cranes in GIDC Makarpura, running one shift with a second added for peak programmes rather than promised year-round. Everything is fabricated here — we do not sub-let fabrication and re-badge it, which is common in this trade and is the reason a mill test certificate sometimes cannot be produced. Every consignment leaves with its MTCs attached to the delivery note.
What consultants and contractors ask
The first two decide whether a quotation can be compared at all.
Why is your quotation higher than the lump sum I have?
Usually it is not — it is itemised. Put the two side by side and check the coating line: a lump sum quoting "painted" against ours quoting blast to Sa 2½ with a named epoxy system and recorded DFT are different scopes at different prices. Ask the other bidder for the same breakdown and the comparison usually resolves itself.
Can you meet my programme?
We will tell you before signing if we cannot, with the constraint named — usually cranage or the coating cure window rather than fabrication. A contractor who agrees to any programme at tender stage is planning to claim an extension, and you will pay for it either way.
Do you fabricate everything yourselves?
Yes. Nothing is sub-let and re-badged, which is why we can always produce a mill test certificate for a member. If a job exceeds our capacity we say so and decline it rather than place it elsewhere quietly.
What is your minimum order?
About twelve tonnes for a fabrication-only package, and there is no minimum if erection is in scope. Below that the mobilisation cost dominates and you would be better served by a smaller local shop — we will name two in Vadodara.