Productivity improvements can come from many different areas in the total fabrication process, e.g. general design, detailed design, contract drawings, CNC instructions, cutting and profiling, welding, inspection, finishing etc. It needs to be realised that optimising the welding process and procedure in isolation may have only a small effect on overall productivity. Productivity improvements could also come from greater standardisation in steel specifications and in joint details and from modularisation of large structures to reduce the time spent on site fabrication and erection.