An erection crew standing idle because nobody can say where the steel is — in the workshop, on a truck, or on site under something else — is the steel contractor’s most expensive hour. Muthari OS is one system where the package runs: purchase orders and goods receipts that write the stock, with the supplier’s batch and heat numbers recorded at goods receipt and a QC decision on every batch; zones moving through fabrication and coating with QC before dispatch; server-issued delivery notes with a QR on every zone; site receipt against the POD; erection recorded daily as quantities per zone; WIRs and a handover that cannot happen without approved inspections; and claims built from what was erected. Built for contractors who fabricate what they install, developed inside working contracting operations in the GCC.
Receive a partial delivery and the PO shows the balance. Every goods-receipt line becomes a batch with supplier batch and heat numbers, then goes to QC: approve, quarantine and split, or return to the supplier with the return note. Only approved stock can be issued to a zone, and the issue names the batches it came from.
A zone is whatever your workshop and erection crew already call it — an assembly, a grid line, a lift, a level. It cannot enter fabrication without an approved drawing and issued material. A superseded drawing revision stops the floor. Every stage stamp carries who, when and which drawing revision it was performed to. Factory QC passes or rejects with a mandatory reason; a reject opens a rework round and rolls the stages back.
Dispatch is refused for zones that have not passed QC. The delivery note prints a QR sticker per zone; the driver confirms the trip; site records receipt with the receiver’s name from the POD. Erection is recorded daily against zone quantities the system will not let you exceed, with photos stamped name and time. The WIR is raised with its verdict, and handover locks only when the inspections are approved.
Progress claims derive previous quantities from the last certified invoice, so double-claiming is structurally impossible. Goods receipts and inspection records attach as evidence. Quantities beyond the BOQ trigger a variation before you erect them for free; budget must be approved before a claim can be raised.
Structural steel is the trade where traceability is contractual rather than merely useful: the documentation package handed over at the end has to connect a piece of erected steel back to a mill certificate.
General arrangement and fabrication drawings, connection design and approval, then release to the workshop. A revision after cutting has begun is scrap in the most literal sense, so the built-to revision needs to be recorded per member and per stage.
Sections and plate are ordered against a specified grade and arrive with mill certificates. The heat or batch number is the identity that must survive from receipt to erection — recorded on the receipt line, carried by the batch in stock, and traceable to what was issued. Supplier documents attach to the receipt itself, so the certificate lives with the material rather than in a separate folder that has to be reassembled at handover.
Cutting, drilling, fit-up, welding to a qualified procedure by qualified welders, then inspection — visual first, and non-destructive testing where the specification calls for it. Weld rejections and repairs are recorded with a cause and a closure, because a repeated defect type is a process problem and only shows up if the causes are typed rather than free text.
Galvanising or blasting and painting, usually at a subcontracted facility, which means material physically leaves and returns and the record has to survive the round trip. Then marking, packing by erection sequence and dispatch under a delivery note.
Site receipt against what actually arrived, then erection recorded per zone, bolt-up and alignment, and inspection before the frame is handed on to following trades. The documentation package — certificates, inspection records, non-conformances and their closures — is assembled from records that already exist rather than reconstructed at the end, which is where the time usually goes.
The same fabricate-and-install spine runs façade and curtain wall packages, cladding, canopies and balustrades — smaller packages, more of them, the same workshop-to-site chain.
The same operational chain runs every specialist trade — a factory and a site against one contract. Why specialist contractors need a different model, and what construction operations software is. For the broader category, see construction project management software.