Computer-driven steel since 1973.

From punch cards to CNC.

GIW has worked at the front of fabrication technology for decades. Our first NC-controlled machine went on the shop floor in 1973. Around the same time we started experimenting with computerized detailing. It was a bit early, but we kept at it, and in 1978 we became a full-time participant in the Sun Systems computerized detailing program.

That system took real effort. We key-punched the data in our drafting room, processed it on a large mainframe in Texas, plotted the drawings in Philadelphia and mailed them to Aurora. The drawings still needed a good deal of manual work, but the experience set us up to take advantage of SDS-2 when it came on the market.

Software for the business

Long before the PCs of the 1990s, we invested in an IBM mainframe in 1978 and wrote custom software to batch-process our administrative work, including inventory, estimates and project management and control. We moved that software to desktop computers and then to PCs as the industry changed. Today we run FabSuite steel management software, merged with some of our internal programs, to generate estimates and handle purchasing, inventory, production control and project management.

CNC on the floor

All major shop operations have moved from manual to NC and then to CNC control. Whether the job is shaping and punching plate and angle, or sawing, punching and drilling main members such as wide flange beams and HSS tubes, the machines take their data directly from the computer-generated shop drawings at the operator's console, and the operator monitors the material as it feeds through. See the machines on our plant and equipment page.