Experts in Steel Frame Buildings Including Design Build for Structural Steel

Our customers expect and appreciate our expertise, which comes from decades of experience in the structural steel industry. Our in-house engineering/detailing department works to reduce the cost and schedule problems often inherent in construction. Puma’s unique abilities benefit both the design and construction phases of a project, making us a valuable team member.

When presented with the opportunity, Puma can take existing project designs for steel frame buildings and work to save money over the lowest competitive bid. Better yet, if we are involved early in the design process, we can provide the lowest cost on your design build/structural steel project and move it forward from schematic design. Using our engineering staff and automated CNC equipment, you will be surprised by how much time and money we can save you. (Read this engineering article to learn more.)

Time and Cost Savings for Steel Frame Buildings

Colorado

A large national contractor came to us with an overall budget that exceeded their owner's stated contract sum on a design build/structural steel project. Our expert engineers reviewed the owner's performance criteria and essentially started the project's design over, from the foundation up, reducing the number of pieces and eliminating unnecessary labor. By reducing the overall tonnage, piece count, amount of labor in the field during erection, and shop labor, significant savings were achieved. In addition, we saved the owner money on the foundation system. As on all our projects, we were dedicated to the job and worked with the team as a whole to complete it, while ensuring the owner's needs were met.

California

A large longtime customer of Puma Steel was involved in a design-build competition in which they were faced with a 320,000 square foot building, a very short construction schedule, and budget challenges. We worked with the design build team to keep the high seismic detailing simple, allowing us to eliminate many field and shop hours from the project. We enabled the project team to give us important steel frame information during the design; so, by the time the CDs where issued, we already had 75% of the building erected. Through our knowledge of the seismic code, and our ability to work with and gain the trust of the EOR and project team, we saved the project schedule at least four months. As with many of the steel frame buildings we’ve worked on, we maintained an impossible schedule and became a key partner for the success of the entire project team.

Wyoming

We recently performed a redesign on a group of three similar 180 foot tall stair towers for an industrial project. It was determined that the worst-case brace sizes and, thus, connection forces were used throughout the structures, resulting in over-designed lateral systems. The use of 60% of the total uniform load capacity for the gravity beams resulted in some reactions approximately 650% of those determined from the actual analysis. This placed great limitations on connection type, and any coping of the beams necessitated doubler plates to meet all necessary limit states. Redesign allowed for significant cost savings and vast simplification of the connection details. Altering the brace configurations eliminated 22% of the braces and approximately 170 associated connections. Modification of the brace type and end connections eliminated an additional 380 shop connections. Six hours of engineering time resulted in a savings of over 30% for the project!