SMART Scaffolder v5.21 supports 8 basic scaffold types:
The good thing about creating a scaffold by starting with one of these pre-defined types is that all of the reports recognise the scaffold’s type. So your quotation text will recognise when special text is required for a stair tower, and your birdcage will automatically be priced differently from your independent.
More scaffold types
I know that the more scaffold types we add, the easier it makes your life. Having a button for creating a scaffold is the fastest way to get the material list, 3D visual, drawings, schedule of scaffolds, price and quotation that you want. We are constantly working to add more scaffold types. In fact, there are two new types which are fairly well advanced in development and a batch of others which we have started working on. (More on this in a future post.)
Special scaffolds
Sometimes site conditions, the shape of a building, obstructions or an unusual project will dictate that using the existing scaffold types is not an option. Using multiple scaffolds, you might be able to create a very convincing 3D visual and drawings, but the price, materials, TG20 check, schedule and quote are all going to be wrong. I will talk briefly here about how you can get the reports you want even for one of these “special” scaffolds.
First, create a Manual Scaffold. If you have schedule IT, good for you! It is very easy. Open schedule IT and press Ctrl + 0, or click the Manual / Other button, and a manual scaffold will be added to this project item. You will see it appear in the grid. Give it an appropriate name and you are good to go.
In the future we plan to unlock the dimensions, so you can show the width, etc. in the quote. You can’t do that in this version though.
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I don’t have schedule IT
If you don’t have schedule IT, why not? Anyway, you can still create a manual scaffold but it must be the only scaffold in a project item. You are not going to be able to name it either, (it will be called “manual”) which is a fairly serious disadvantage. Create a blank project item by pressing Ctrl + Insert or clicking on the Add New Item button in the project browser.
Right, now let’s add some materials to our scaffold. Open report IT on the material list view and make sure the manual scaffold is selected from the Edit Section menu. This is important, because you might want these materials to be used for pricing this manual scaffold. Scroll down to the bottom of the material list and look at the Extra Materials section. Add the materials that you want by pressing the ‘+’ button and changing the new line that appears.
Ok, now let’s price our scaffold. Open price IT on the item pricing report. Our scaffold automatically appears in the Labour section. It is priced as a manual scaffold. Your best bet is to either price it using the materials you just added (using the tons of material or tonnes of material) methods, or to select one of the other methods and then manually add a value for the length / volume / etc. The Materials section already includes our materials, so there is no problem here.
If you have no other scaffolds in the item, the quotation might look a bit plain. Many of the SMARTText fields ignore manual scaffolds. For example, SMART Scaffolder doesn’t know which guardrails you have added to which lifts, so the Guardrails Description ignores the manual scaffold. I recommend keeping the existing SMARTText where possible, since this will make the quote more responsive if you add or change scaffolds later, but you will need to type any descriptions that you need directly onto the document.
Fin.
So that’s it. With a bit of extra work, you have a material list, price and quote suitable for your special scaffold. To get the 3D visual and drawings looking good will need to be dealt with differently, but I’ll talk about that in a future post.
You can now create custom quotation documents using the flexible SMARTText system. These quotations are available from the quote IT tab (if you have the licence).
