The Client
A well-known engineering company was detailing a thermal power plant project. The scope included multiple stair structures near boilers, chimney areas, fuel handling platforms, and general plant access zones. These stairs needed a high level of detailing accuracy since they are part of the core safety system.
Challenge
Industrial stairs are not simple objects. Flights need a correct slope, riser height, and tread width. Landings must be attached neatly to beams. Railings must follow safety standards without any messy offsets. All these decisions were made manually by the detailers, and this took an exceptionally long time. One staircase consumed close to 36 hours of modelling and review.
There were 20 stair units in the project, which required more resources to work simultaneously. Whenever the level of the supporting structure changed, there was repeated work on many parts of the staircase.
- Manual creation takes 36 hours for each stair unit
- Small design changes forced repeat work and frustration
- Higher chances of misalignment if one step slips past review
- Low predictability of the timeline because of uneven task durations
- Detailers are losing time on tasks that do not need expert creativity
Solution
Stridely introduced the Staircase automation tool into their Tekla environment to lighten the load. The Tool asked for inputs like the location where to place the stairs, the maximum number of risers per flight, overall width, and platform elevations (calculated by the tool). After entering those values, the full stair assembly appeared in one continuous flow. Flights, risers, treads, landings, and guardrails aligned automatically with the supporting members around the stairs. If coordination changes happened later in the project, the team only updated the inputs, and the Tool refreshed the geometry. They kept control of parameters, but no longer wasted hours correcting the same shapes again. The learning curve was very friendly, and the Tool became a part of the team workflow within a brief period.
Notable Tool capabilities
- A full stair assembly was created within minutes.
- Smoother coordination with connected steel since geometry stays correct.
- Guardrails and support posts are placed automatically with consistent spacing.
- Easy edits without breaking earlier work.
- No complex training is needed, and the team understood the tool quickly.
Result
- Around 90% less repetitive modelling work
- Fewer review comments because everything looked uniform
- Better planning since hours per task were more constant
- Detailers had more bandwidth for solving real design concerns
- Faster movement of drawings to fabrication without big back-and-forth cycles
Conclusion
The client saw improvement in speed, quality, and team morale. They understood that smart tools help detailers focus on work that matters every time. The Staircase Tool has become a trusted part of their Tekla environment. Stridely is building solutions that support detailers with reliable automation and better control of every tough structure. Contact us today.
