Software : Designing to Sell

Home » Steel eNotes - Spring 2010 » Software : Designing to Sell

To say that the steel truss market today is competitive is certainly an understatement. With more and more fabricators bidding on a smaller number of jobs, one has to be sure that their truss designs are as efficient as possible. Gone are the days when it was enough to “get the truss to run” and know that you would pick up money on the final designs after you got the job. Now you have to use those optimization skills at the estimating stage just to be competitive.

Two important things that will help you produce those efficient truss designs are:

1. Setup labor cost factors in the Aegis Design program.
2. Be aware of the relative cost and strength of Ultra-Span materials.

Labor Costs

Disclaimer: Labor costs can vary widely from region to region and from plant to plant. The labor figures noted in the following are merely for illustration purposes and to indicate the magnitude of change based on the various conditions outlined.

Every good business man knows what his costs are. As a fabricator, you should know what it costs you to build trusses and, using the Estimating portion of the Design program, you can apply those costs to each truss design. You cannot accurately estimate the truss cost based on material alone. For example Grabber screws may be slightly more expensive than a “no-name” #10 but, because fewer are required per truss, you probably will save money by reducing the total amount of labor required to build the truss. Below is the same truss designed first with “no-name” fasteners and then with Grabber. The result is a 29% decrease in fastener labor!

 

 

As another illustration, adding more panels may allow a truss to run with 035 material, however, the savings might be offset by the labor to cut, handle and fasten the additional webs. You can’t tell unless you have some labor costs applied. Here is just such an example:

Example 1

 

In Example 1, the truss runs with as few pieces as possible but this causes the chords to cycle to 046. The material & fastener list cost is $39.62 plus a labor cost of $9.81 = $49.43

Example 2

 

In Example 2, a single panel point is added to the top chord and now all material is 035. Even though we added one more piece of material the overall cost of the truss is reduced by $4.52. The new material & fastener list cost is $33.82 plus a labor cost of $11.09 = $44.91

If we had only considered material costs, we would mistakenly think that we are saving more money. Because we included a labor factor we can be sure that our design is efficient and our total cost is accurate.

Material Cycling and Selection

While the Aegis Design program is a powerful tool, it is not smarter than the designer when it comes to material cycling and product line selection. The addition of mil colors to the program has helped to identify where the costs are in a truss but you, the designer, need to become aware of the relative costs of various Ultra-Span materials.

The Design program cycles materials based on your steel inventory until it finds a section that works. It’s entirely possible that another section further along in the inventory list may work as well but cost less.

In Example 3, the truss runs with 25USC046 for the top chord so the program stops cycling there. However, by changing the top chord to 35USC (see Example 4), we can save about $2.00 per truss (Example 4).

Example 3

 

Example 4

 

To the same end, don’t always think that USC is the most cost efficient material. In a complex, heavily braced truss, USD may be better.

Example 5

 

Example 5 is a relatively short truss run with USC material. The use of UST web bracing boosts the cost of both material and labor, not only because of additional pieces to purchase and handle, but also because of additional fasteners required for the UST.

Example 6

Example 6 shows that, by selecting the USD product line in Steel, we can save almost $6.00 per truss in material and labor cost.

All of these changes can be made quickly in the Aegis Design program. So, a few minutes of the estimator’s time can yield great benefits, especially if it means the difference between being low bidder or middle of the pack. That’s what DESIGNING TO SELL means!

Phil Neely
Senior Technical Sales Representative