The Steel Plus Network is a division of The Canam Manac Group of Canada, an industrial company specialized in the fabrication of structural steel components, semitrailers, and forestry equipment and operates 22 plants in Canada, the United States, Mexico and France. Steel Plus Network members are specialized in structural steel fabrication and the Network offers them innovative services to help them increase competitiveness and sales volumes. Steel Plus Network has 117 fabricator members and 87 supplier members in Canada and the United States. Their members get a Mac, PowerCADD, WildTools and Steel Plus’s PDM software, which Jim Lewis describes here. www.groupecanam.com
I had a software demo in my office recently. It was by “Steel Plus Network” which is part of CanAm out of Canada. The way the software worked is this — you draw the plan views and elevation. Type in dimensions and elevations, and the software will automatically detail every part of the building — structurally including beams, columns, bracing, girts, joists, decking, and all related plates. You can do a job that would normally take weeks and do it in hours.
What was interesting is that the drawings are output as PowerCADD drawings. There are some parts of the drawings that must be done manually and it’s done in PowerCADD. They love the Mac and PowerCADD. Steel Plus Network has many members in Canada and the US. Most of steel fabricators — so your steel tools are being put to good use.
Jim Lewis
La Crosse, WI
Steel Plus and Nuts & Bolts
The Steel Plus group was intimately involved in the development of the Nuts & Bolts palette in WildTools. They had a very specific list of things they wanted, including the steel shapes with the sizes from the ‘steel book’, copes, hole patterns and most importantly the Welding Symbol tool. I wrote down their wish-list and did every single thing on the list.
Alfred Scott
