Model the columns before quoting
The survey should have happened before the price, not after the order.
If skippedThe price was built on fourteen identical parts that did not exist, so the first three days of production were effectively re-worked.
1,840 m² of lobby,
fourteen columns
that were all different
The drawing showed fourteen identical columns. The building had other ideas, and the hotel was open while we worked.
Material recorded per job: 304 or 316L, fabricated and trial-assembled in our Foshan factory.
- Scope
- 1,840 m²
- Schedule
- 61 d
- On site
- 0 cuts
- Delay we caused
- +9 d
01
The job
A hotel lobby refurbishment: fourteen structural columns to be cased, a 26 m reception wall, a coffered ceiling over the lounge, and lift fronts on two cores. One finish standard across all of it, in champagne PVD.
The architectural drawing showed fourteen identical columns. The building had other ideas.
The constraint that decided everything
The hotel was open during the work. Nothing could be cut in the lobby, and nothing could be delivered that did not fit on the first attempt — there was no second attempt available, because the space was in use every day.
That single constraint is why this job has a case file. It forced the survey, the per-column drawings, and the trial assembly to happen properly, because the alternative was closing a working hotel lobby.
02
The four photographs
Wide view, node, trial fit, and the ceiling run.
FIG. 01.1Lobby after handover — mirror casings, one finish
FIG. 01.2A hammered tub, welded and checked on the shop floor
FIG. 01.3The same casings seen from the corridor side
03
The record
- Brief
- Lobby refurbishment, hotel in use throughout, no site cutting permitted.
- Scope
- 1,840 m² — 14 column casings, 26 m reception wall, coffered ceiling, lift fronts on two cores.
- Finish
- Champagne PVD, one batch, approved against a 1:1 mock-up corner.
- Survey
- Site measured before release. Deviation across the fourteen columns ranged from 4 mm to 38 mm. The drawing assumed they were identical.
- Response
- Each casing modelled individually from the survey. No common part, and no shimming allowance hidden inside the joint.
- Mock-up
- First three casings trial-fitted in the plant came out 6 mm over on the seam (FIG. 01.3). We scrapped them and re-cut.
- Delay
- +9 days against our own schedule. Reported to the client the same afternoon, with the cause and the new date.
- Delivery
- Pre-assembled, numbered per column, four containers in install sequence, a location drawing in every carton.
- On site
- Zero field cuts. One replacement piece shipped — a survey error on our side, freight covered by us.
Figures in this record are being confirmed with the client before publication and are marked in the drawing set. We publish a case file only when the numbers can be checked — a wrong job record is a factual error, not a typo.
04
What we would do differently
Trial-fit the first casing alone, earlier
One casing at D16 would have found the 6 mm in a day instead of a week.
If skippedAll three were made before any was checked, so the same error was made three times.
Tell the client before we have a fix
We called the same afternoon, with a date but before we knew the recovery plan.
If skippedThe alternative — waiting until we had a solution — turns a nine-day problem into a trust problem.
Your job will look
nothing like these.
Send it anyway.
Case files are here to show how we work, not what we make. Every job starts from your drawing, and the first thing you get back is a list of problems.