Industrial drawing packages become expensive when the scope is unclear. A model may look complete while essential interfaces, design decisions or fabrication requirements are still unresolved. For mining, industrial and fabrication work, a good SMPP detailing brief establishes exactly what is to be modelled, detailed, coordinated and issued.
1. Establish the design status and responsibility boundaries
Identify the issuing engineer or design authority, the design status of each source document, and who is responsible for technical approval. Distinguish construction-ready issued-for-construction information from concepts, tender information and vendor-supplied preliminary layouts. A detailing contractor should not be expected to infer missing engineering design decisions without review.
2. List the information to be supplied
- Latest design drawings, design criteria, marked-up scope drawings and revision register.
- Existing plant or building surveys, model references, and the project coordinate system.
- Client drafting, tagging, material, weld and documentation specifications where applicable.
- Equipment vendor drawings, nozzle schedules, loads and interface details.
- Known site access, transport, lifting, erection and shutdown constraints.
3. Define structural steel and platework deliverables
Typical deliverables may include structural general arrangements, member and connection details, fabrication drawings, erection information, bills of materials and agreed machine-readable outputs such as DXF or NC files. State explicitly which items are required: platforms, walkways, stairs, ladders, handrails, access steel, support frames, hoppers, chutes and connection interfaces. Not every package requires every deliverable.
4. Define mechanical and piping interfaces
Equipment layouts and piping general arrangements need agreed tie-in points, access clearances, maintenance envelopes, connection locations and support responsibilities. Clarify whether piping is being routed, detailed, reviewed for coordination or engineered. A 3D layout does not, by itself, replace approved piping calculations or design.
5. Set the coordination and review workflow
Specify the modelling platform and exchange formats, reference-model policy, drawing numbering, review stages, revision process and clash-resolution ownership. Identify who consolidates comments from the engineer, fabricator, contractor and site team. Uncontrolled redlines and conflicting revisions are a common source of wasted drawing-office time.
6. Plan the issue sequence around fabrication and site needs
Agree on priority areas, early procurement information, phased drawing releases, vendor hold points, cut-off dates for late design changes and final as-built requirements. The drawing register should reflect what the receiving team needs next, not simply the order in which files are easiest to create.
7. Include a clear exclusions list
Explicitly identify any design verification, structural calculations, piping stress analysis, survey work, site measurement, professional sign-off, fabrication or construction tasks that are excluded unless separately commissioned. This protects project responsibilities and makes quotations more comparable.
A useful first enquiry
A workable initial package consists of a scope description, available drawings or models, target deliverables, programme constraints, approval requirements and a contact for technical queries. WOM supports SMPP and structural steel detailing, mechanical and piping layouts, tender documentation and project drawing-office capacity.
Review WOM’s mining and industrial SMPP detailing services, explore structural steel detailing, view mechanical & piping detailing, or send your scope for review. For an example of drawing-office work on industrial steelwork interfaces, see the Boiler House Expansion portfolio.
Scope guidance only. Engineering design, calculations and approvals remain subject to the responsible project’s qualified design professionals.