How Long Does Steel Detailing Take? Turnaround Times Explained

There is no single turnaround time because a detailing schedule is the sum of several stages, and some of them are controlled by people other than the detailer: the design team answering RFIs and reviewing submittals, and the fabricator releasing work. Package size also varies enormously, from a few misc steel items to a multi-story frame.

A firm that promises a fixed turnaround before seeing your documents is guessing. A useful schedule is built after the documents are reviewed, states its assumptions about RFI response and review times, and shows which dates depend on whom.

Detailing turnaround is made up of intake and document review, RFIs, modeling, checking, the approval review, comment incorporation, fabrication release and any later revisions. The detailer controls the modeling, drawing and checking time; the design team controls RFI answers and approval reviews; and document completeness affects every stage.

See the steel detailing process for what goes in and comes out of each stage.

Incomplete or conflicting contract documents slow a detailing schedule more than anything else, because they generate RFIs and hold affected pieces. Slow RFI answers, design changes during detailing, heavy approval comments, missing shop standards, late decisions on scope, and compressed dates that force resequencing all add time. Most of these sit outside the detailer's control.

Approval reviews often decide the overall schedule, because they sit between detailing and fabrication and are controlled by the design team, not the detailer. The contract usually sets a review period, and AISC 303 includes a default when the contract does not. Each round of revise-and-resubmit adds another review period on top of the detailing time.

Plan the submittal schedule with the review period built in, not added later. Resolving scope questions and open RFIs before the approval submittal reduces comments, and a package approved as noted can often be released for fabrication with its comments incorporated rather than waiting for a full resubmittal, where the reviewer allows it.

RFIs stall the pieces they affect until the design team answers, so the number of questions and the speed of answers directly shape turnaround. Well-written RFIs, with sheet, grid and detail references and a clear question, get answered faster. Detailing continues on the areas the questions do not touch.

An RFI log is the most useful schedule tool in this stage. It shows which questions are open, how long each has waited, and whose answer is holding which pieces, which turns schedule conversations into facts rather than impressions.

Yes, and phasing is often the fastest way to get fabrication and construction moving. Anchor rod setting plans and embeds are commonly released first because concrete work depends on them, followed by structural steel by area or erection sequence, with miscellaneous steel such as stairs and rails released once the conditions they depend on are confirmed.

Each phase is detailed, checked, submitted and approved on its own, which shortens the wait for the first fabrication release even if total detailing hours stay the same. Phases need clear boundaries so connections between them are detailed once, with consistent marks. See erection drawings for how anchor rod plans and erection sequences fit into a package.

An offshore time zone changes the rhythm of detailing more than its total length. With a team in India, questions and markups sent at the end of the US day are worked during the US night, which suits batched work but slows urgent exchanges. Over a full package, RFI answers and approval reviews usually affect duration more.

The practical difference is in how you communicate: batch questions, send complete markups rather than piecemeal notes, and mark urgent items clearly. The guide to outsourcing steel detailing covers the time-zone tradeoff in more detail.

On one package Vertex detailed, HSS frame assemblies with thermal breaks for an airport terminal rehabilitation and addition in New England, Rev A was issued for approval on September 3, 2026, and Rev 0 was issued for fabrication on September 9, 2026. That is six days between the approval issue and the fabrication issue, including review time.

Treat that as one data point, not a benchmark. It was a single, well-defined package, and the six days covered both the reviewers' time and the detailing work, in proportions this example does not break down. The case study describes the scope.

You shorten detailing turnaround mostly by removing waiting: send complete, current documents at the start, provide shop standards before modeling, answer RFIs quickly, keep the design stable once detailing begins, build review periods into the schedule, and release in phases. Pushing the detailer to work faster helps far less than removing the stages where work waits.

• Send contract drawings, specifications and addenda as one current set
• Provide shop standards, NC format and approved drawing examples at intake
• Assign one person to answer scope questions and chase RFI answers
• Release design for detailing once it is stable
• Build the design team's review period into the submittal schedule
• Release anchor rods and embeds first, then steel by area or sequence

Compressed schedules also carry a cost. At Vertex, turnaround pressure is one of the factors that moves a package toward the upper end of the published rate range.

Ask a detailer for a schedule prepared after reviewing your documents, with its assumptions written down: expected RFI response times, the approval review period, phasing, and the capacity the detailer is committing to your package. Ask how delays and open questions will be reported. A schedule with stated assumptions is one you can manage.

• What schedule do you propose after reviewing our documents, and what does it assume?
• Which dates depend on RFI answers or review periods?
• Can the package be phased, and in what order?
• How much of your team's capacity is committed to our package?
• How will you report open RFIs and schedule risks?

For how a primary framing package is scoped and detailed, see structural steel detailing; for how drawings are checked before each release, see quality control.