New build
Scaffolding software for new build sites.
Repeatable structures, a programme somebody else owns, and a lift going up every week.
14 days free access · no card needed
New build is the most predictable scaffolding there is and the easiest to get administratively wrong. The structures repeat, the configurations are usually ordinary facade work, and the geometry is known before anybody arrives — which means the design question is settled early and the pressure moves entirely onto pace.
That pace comes from somebody else's programme. The main contractor sets the sequence, the scaffold follows the trades, and every lift, adaptation and strike is driven by a date you did not choose. A week's delay to the frame becomes a week of standing scaffold you did not price for, and a week's acceleration becomes a squad you have to find by Thursday.
The records suffer in exactly that gap. A structure that gets adapted four times in six weeks accumulates four handovers and a tag that has to keep up, and on a busy site the paperwork is the thing that slips first while the scaffolding itself stays perfectly sound.
The records
What new build scaffolding are answerable for
- Project and site register, with the structures on each
- The TG20 compliance sheet or bespoke design each structure was built to
- Quotes built from the material list the design produced
- Handover certificates and current tag status per structure
- Seven-day, post-alteration and post-weather inspection records
- CISRS card, medical and training expiry per operative
The problem
What makes this hard for new build scaffolding
Adaptations outrun the paperwork
A structure that rises with the trades is adapted repeatedly, and each adaptation needs its own handover and a tag that reflects it. On a fast site that is where the record falls behind the steel.
The programme is not yours
Dates move for reasons that have nothing to do with scaffolding, and the hire period moves with them. What was quoted and what is standing drift apart quietly.
Variations agreed on the phone
An extra loading bay, a longer return, a lift that was not in the quote. Agreed verbally on site, remembered differently later, and argued about at the end.
Squads across several live sites
The same gangs move between jobs weekly. Knowing who is where, with what kit, on which wagon is a scheduling problem that a whiteboard solves until it does not.
Inspections due on structures that keep changing
A structure altered on Tuesday needs a record for that alteration as well as its routine cycle. Where both live on paper in a site hut, neither is retrievable when somebody asks.
The answer
How ScaffoldOptix helps
Adaptations outrun the paperwork
Handover certificates and tag status are held against the structure, so an adaptation produces a record attached to the thing that changed rather than a sheet in a folder.
Handovers and certificatesInspections due on structures that keep changing
Inspection records cover the routine cycle as well as post-alteration and post-weather, so a structure that changed on Tuesday is not relying on somebody remembering that it did.
Inspections and adaptationsVariations agreed on the phone
Quotes are built from the material list a design produced, against your own rate card, so a variation is priced from the same arithmetic as the original rather than from memory.
Estimating and quotingSquads across several live sites
Squad and vehicle scheduling runs across live contracts, so the gang allocation is a record rather than a conversation that happened at seven in the morning.
Projects and sitesThe programme is not yours
Projects and sites hold the structures on them with their hire periods, which is what makes standing time visible while it is still accruing.
Projects and sites
Who it is for
The people doing this job
Contracts managers
Holding several live sites against somebody else's programme.
hire periodEstimators
Pricing from a material list, then repricing every variation.
bill of materialsSupervisors and chargehands
Signing off handovers and tagging structures as they change.
handover certificateScaffold inspectors
Recording routine, post-alteration and post-weather inspections.
7-day inspectionMain contractor site managers
The ones asking to see the tag and the certificate.
scaffold tag
Questions
What new build scaffolding ask
- Does it produce scaffold designs?
- It models configurations in three dimensions and produces drawings, elevations and a material list from them. It does not produce bespoke designs or structural calculations: a configuration outside a compliance sheet is the work of a competent designer, and ScaffoldOptix records that design rather than generating it.
- Can we record which compliance sheet a structure was built to?
- Yes — the TG20 compliance sheet or the bespoke design a structure was built to is held against the structure. Whether the right sheet was used is a question for the person who built it, not for the software.
- Does it invoice the hire period?
- No. Quoting ends at the issued quote. There is no invoicing, credit control or accounting, and what happens to the money after the quote belongs in your finance system.
- Will it manage the programme?
- No. It is not Gantt-chart project management. It holds projects, sites, structures and squads; the main contractor's programme stays where it lives.
- Does it track the yard?
- No. Procurement and stock control across the yard are out of scope. Material lists come from designs, not from stock levels.
Keep reading
Paperwork that keeps up with the steel
14 days free access · no card needed