NEW! Standard Specification for Bar Coded Shipment Label and Electronic Advance Shipment Notice, including Test Report information, for Rolled Structural Steel Shapes

For several years the Metals Service Center Institute, the American Institute of Steel Construction and the Technical Committee on Structural Shapes have been working to create a standard for the metals industry that would provide for more cost effective, efficient and automated methods to ship and receive rolled structural steel shapes. The vision of this process includes all the parties in the structural steel industry distribution chain:  suppliers of structural steel shapes, including steel mills and service centers, and purchasers, such as structural steel fabricators and erectors. This vision provides for the computer-to-computer exchange (XML transmission) of information about structural steel products being shipped from producer to distributor to end user, and the accurate tagging of the physical products using standard bar code technology.

The culmination of this industry effort is a three-part standard. The first component delineates the information that needs to be on the bar-coded shipping label placed on an individual lift (piece or bundle) of structural steel. The second component is an Advance Shipment Notice (ASN), an electronic file (XML format) sent in advance of the material shipment. The third component is electronic (mill) test report data, supplied by the structural shape producer, which may be included and/or referenced within the electronic file. These three components are linked via a unique supplier reference number generated by the material supplier for a specific producing/distribution facility location. The objective of the standard is to create a more efficient, integrated supply chain, whereas each shipment lift (piece or bundle) will have a bar coded license plate that carries with it detailed information about what it is, when it is being sent, who sent it, how it is being shipped, that  and has traceability to its origin (mill test report).

View/download the Electronic Shipping Standard for Structural Steel.

Customers: Use the AISC ASN Conversion Tool to read, print, and store a paper copy of the ASN XML file.

Suppliers:   Download the ASN XML Schema

Hard copies of the standard may be requested in writing to: 
 Gabriel Coleman, Committee Secretary
 American Institute of Steel Construction
 1 E Wacker Drive Suite 3100
 Chicago, IL 60601
 email: coleman@aisc.org