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Cost-accountable design: We have found that, depending on project size, actualized material savings can range from 3% to 20%, but most commonly, between 5% and 10%. Case in point: On a recent midsized project, we saved the client $124,883 in materials on a redesign of a $1,282,000 project, achieving an overall material savings of 9.74%. But this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cost-accountable design that also achieves today’s most creative design ideas using steel joists.
A chain reaction of cost savings can be achieved, including transportation savings, project handling, and re-manufacturing.
Transportation savings: Of course, the obvious implication of less material is that fewer trucks will be required for transportation. On average, 17 tons of joists can be loaded on a truck. Consequently, based on the fact that the company successfully reduced tonnage on a recent project from 926.77 tons to 848.23 tons, only 50 trucks were required instead of the original 55 trucks. This translated to $6,276, or 8.3% savings in transportation costs, for an overall joist cost project reduction of 0.5%.
Project handling: Moving down the cascading chain of events, fewer lifts are then required to load and unload the trucks. Based on a $10 per ton estimation for loading and unloading, New Millennium’s client on this project cashed in on savings of $1,700 for project handling, equating to 0.1% total project savings.
Design errors and reinstallation: When design and fabrication are not optimized, manufacturing errors – often fostered by incomplete or wrong structural drawings – can be costly. In addition to the time and cost associated with executing change orders, a number of sample scenarios illustrate the different places where time and money can potentially be lost. For instance, if five 30K12 bar joists needed to be redesigned and re-supplied by the manufacturer, estimated costs would be 2.1 tons at a price of $2,835, plus $1,025 for freight to the jobsite.
For more information on this subject, download our new white paper:
Structural Steel Delivery Boosts Building Projects (341 KB pdf)
Horizontal displacement: An intriguing structural steel joist engineering challenge is that of a pitched or rolled bottom chord and a pin-roller truss anchorage condition. Such conditions require close coordination between the engineer of record and the joist engineer. Our new special profile joist catalog specification provides a more thorough discussion of this topic than previously available. The key concept that both the specifying engineer and the joist engineer should remember is that if the joist anchorage at each end is fixed by means of welding or slip-critical bolting, the horizontal displacement present in the structure is a function of the combined stiffness of the joists and the supporting structure along the direction of horizontal thrust or slip.
If the engineer of record requests that there be very little slip, there must be a mechanism in place to resist the thrust forces. The most common means of achieving this is by means of a tension tie. This mechanism effectively turns the entire joist (as fabricated) into a built-up top chord element, and the tie provides the tension. In this manner, the effective depth of the section becomes very large, and the resulting bending forces required to generate the bending moment are greatly reduced. Subsequently, the design may be more efficient and more economical.
Horizontal deflection design can account for an engineer of record’s request that there be very little horizontal thrust or slip.
For more information on this subject, download our article:
Raising Expectations: New Design Freedom for Architects and Engineers (176 KB pdf)
3 week drawing turn-around: When you need steel joist drawings absolutely, positively delivered in three weeks or less, call on New Millennium. In our experience, the reason why so many projects go beyond this timeframe is because of the needlessly complicated Requests for Information (RFI) process. To address this problem, we have made it our business to not let a project lose momentum for lack of timely and proactive communication.
If you agree that the core purpose of the RFI process should be to clarify and communicate project issues, then let’s make the RFI process work. During the clarification and communication phase of a project, critical issues must be identified and resolved. Then, not only can we turn around drawings in three weeks or less, we can prevent costly errors before they happen, through a new era of highly collaborative and proactive project participation.
For more information on this subject, download our introduction to cost-effective
Steel Joist and Deck Design, Manufacturing and Delivery (804 KB pdf)
New Millennium Building Systems is a wholly owned subsidiary of Steel Dynamics Inc.
