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Responsible Steelwork Procurement

Responsible and Cost-Effective Steelwork Procurement

The ASI ‘Responsible Steelwork Procurement’ initiative follows international good practice in bringing together the supply chain tools needed to ensure cost-effective procurement of compliant steelwork structures.  

Responsible steelwork procurement touches on all members of the steelwork supply chain, ensuring duty of care under Workplace Health and Safety Regulation. The ASI has put in place a framework for risk categorisation and steelwork fabricator prequalification enabling cost-effective procurement of compliant steelwork structures.  

Our Implementation Toolkit provides the necessary resources for a range of supply chain stakeholders to help address duty of care under Workplace Health and Safety Regulation and emerging non-conforming product chain of responsibility regulation.

Implementation toolkit

The ASI has developed a range of tools to facilitate expedient cost-effective implementation of responsible steelwork procurement. 

For client: Recommended contract wording

The Recommended contract wording' (PDF)' has been developed by the ASI to make it straightforward for clients, procurers and builders to insert appropriate clauses into procurement contracts, particularly those enabling SCA fabricator certification to meet project schedules.

For engineer: ASI National Structural Steelwork Specification (NSSS)

The new ASI NSSS has been developed as the primary implementation tool for engineers and specifiers to embed the requirements of AS/NZS 5131 in an expedient and rationalised fashion. The NSSS is freely available in editable format, can be used ‘as is’ or modified and/or incorporated into your own specifications.

The companion Structural Steelwork Standard Drawing Notes work together with the NSSS and, for smaller projects, may be all that is required.

The NSSS and drawing notes are a free download.

For builder/contractor: ASI National Structural Steelwork Compliance Scheme (NSSCS)

Developed by the ASI, the NSSCS provides the framework enabling cost-effective procurement of compliant steelwork structures. It comprises four ‘pillars’:

  • Australian Standard AS/NZS 5131 ‘Structural steelwork – Fabrication and erection’ as the technical foundation
  • Conformity assessment to AS/NZS 5131
  • Auditing of fabricators by Steelwork Compliance Australia (SCA)
  • Risk identification via Construction Categories, undertaken by the engineer.

For fabricator: SCA certification

The use of Steelwork Compliance Australia (SCA) certified fabricators ensures your fabricator has the demonstrable processes in place to satisfy the requirements of AS/NZS 5131 and provide risk-minimised quality construction, with greatly simplified processes for clients, builders, engineers and certifiers to ascertain compliance.

Visit Steelwork Compliance Australia to find out more and to check fabricator certification status.

For building certifier: Building certifier guidance and checklist

Building certifiers need to ensure steelwork construction is compliant through a pragmatic cost-effective process. Our guidance and checklist provides the pointers that will minimise risk and deliver compliant outcomes.