1. Provide your final drawings

Sounds easy, right? Well we know it’s not that straight forward. Your project changes many times throughout its program, which makes it challenging to provide the final drawings at the start. Though if you can restrict the changes and prepare the final set of drawings at the beginning you’re assured to have a smoother running and more accurately scheduled project.

If you can’t get your hands on the final drawings, make sure you keep your scheduling contact regularly updated on any changes or revisions.

There are a few essential documents to provide to your reinforcing steel scheduler to determine the lengths and quantity required for each element, including:

• Architectural drawings
• Structural drawings
• Civil drawings

Just by providing these three final sets off documents, you are already at an advantage. These documents will provide your scheduler with plan and section details to correctly schedule your project, rather than calculating quantities from a half-completed design.

Even if you only take this first tip on board, and none of the others, it will improve the accuracy of schedules with fewer deviations.

2. Plan to lead times

Firstly, find out your schedulers lead times for your project. As a guide, most reinforcing elements in structures are scheduled within 3–days depending on the project size and the companies experience (Not including production lead time).

A good point of reference to start from would be:

Residential: Single house dwellings, small apartments = 2 days
Commercial: High rise buildings, offices, retail buildings = 3–5 days
Civil: Main roads, tunnels, airports = 3–5 days

To add further confidence, we recommend giving your reinforcing scheduler a 14-day look in advance as a buffer on all the elements required in that time frame. By providing a forward plan, the right amount of time is spent on your project to determine future issues and also offer any cost-saving alternatives.