Producer, stockholder, fabricator
A question we hear from people outside the industry is whether we actually make the steel. That can mean fabricating steelwork from stock, or producing steel from raw materials in a blast furnace. They are different industries.
A steel producer, or mill, manufactures the steel itself from raw materials, recycled scrap, or a combination, and forms it into products such as universal beams, columns and plate. A stockholder buys those products and holds them ready for fabricators and builders, often with cutting and delivery. A fabricator takes the sections and plate and manufactures the components for a particular project.
What happens at Steel Structures
Steel Structures is a structural steelwork fabricator. We buy sections and plate from established suppliers and process them at Dunmurry into the components the project needs. That can mean cutting and drilling, fabricating connection plates, welding to the approved details, applying a specified shop primer or arranging another finish, then checking the components for delivery.
The drawing office uses Tekla Structures for the models and fabrication drawings. The factory has automated section processing, in-house plasma plate cutting and dedicated fabrication areas, for projects from individual beams to larger frames. We do not manufacture steel from raw materials. We manufacture the project-specific components contractors need to build the structure. Steel fabrication in Dunmurry.