The American Institute of Steel Construction continues to drill downstream in the supply chain to ramp up e-commerce in the structural-steel sector. Though still pushing for the sharing of steel building information models between the engineer of record and the fabricator, AISC is greasing the wheels of digital automation by issuing a call for steel suppliers and producers to jump on the bandwagon of its electronic steel purchasing initiative.
"We need to advance this," said Matthew J. Gomez, national manager for construction solutions with supplier Gerdau and chairman of the AISC technical group working on the e-purchasing initiative, at AISC's 2015 North American Steel Construction Conference, held on March 25-28 in Nashville.
AISC's electronic-ordering undertaking—one of its "Bimsteel" e-commerce initiatives—is called the Common XML Schema for the Electronic Procurement of Structural Steel (steelXML). AISC collaborated with the Digital Building Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology to develop the steelXML schema—a standard specification that maps the transactions and communications workflow between buyers and suppliers of structural steel.
根据SteelXML计划，制造商将不再需要通过传真或电子邮件附件订购钢，这两个都需要多个数据输入。AISC信息技术计划主任卢克·福克纳（Luke Faulkner）在会议上说：“所有时间都加起来。”
Suppliers also are suffering from by-hand paperwork. One supplier said that, in his shop, the sales force spends 40% to 60% of its time on data entry and re-entry.
该规范最终将通过开发17个XML模式来涵盖整个钢采购过程的10个单独的双向数据交换（要求和响应）。这10次交易所是可用性查询，价格报价，采购订单，订单状态查询，高级装运通知，材料测试报告，发票，付款，可持续性信息和提货账单。
The steelXML initiative is not yet complete. To date, schemas for availability, quote, purchase order and advanced shipment notice have been released. The rest will follow later this spring, says AISC.
Also during the conference, AISCreleased for public reviewthe draft AISC 358 standard, named 2016 Prequalified Connections for Special and Intermediate Steel Moment Frames for Seismic Applications. The deadline for submitting comments for the standard, which updates the 2010 version and the 2011 and 2014 supplements, is May 11.
In the 2016 AISC 341 standard—Seismic Provisions for Structural Steel Buildings—AISC intends to include, for the first time, provisions for multi-tiered braced frames, such as industrial plants and hangars that do not have continuous floor diaphragms. The provisions are scheduled to go to the AISC specifications committee for balloting this month.
Under the steelXML initiative, fabricators that use management information system/material resource planning software from participating vendors, which to date includeFabTrol Systems,FABSUITE钢铁管理软件,Construsoft's StruM.I.S.,Ficep Corp.的钢铁项目18luck官网andRomac Computer Services Inc.，不必进行任何编码来实施电子采购。Faulkner说，只有编写自己的MIS/MRP软件的制造商才能添加代码。
目前，这五个MIS/MRP供应商已实施了SteelXML的可用性查询和报价请求。他们正在测试其他模式。
The big issue is that, to date, only three suppliers, which have to code an XML translator into their software for fabricators to use steelXML, are onboard:Gerdau,Infra-MetalsandNucor Corp.
More suppliers need to be able to accept a steelXML file, said Gomez. "The mission of developing the schema has been met," he added. "Now we have to see industry implementation."
