Great Western Buildings Expands In-House Manufacturing to Cut Steel Building Lead Times

In 2021, Great Western Buildings (GWB) opened a new manufacturing facility in Grand Junction, Colorado, with a clear goal in mind: create a faster, more reliable process for delivering pre-engineered steel buildings to our customers. Bringing on this new manufacturing facility gave us greater control over production, reduced our dependence on outside suppliers, and allowed us to skip middleman and offer true factory-direct pricing.

Today, GWB is continuing that investment by expanding our in house production capabilities with the addition of a new purlin line for cold formed steel building components. The new machinery allows us to produce more of the framing components used in our buildings, including C channel secondary framing pieces and larger parts compared to components already manufactured at our Grand Junction facility. Before this expansion, GWB produced about eighty percent of the cold formed steel components. These equipment limitations required us to rely on outside suppliers for some parts. Now, nearly 100 percent of these components are manufactured in house at our Grand Junction, Colorado, facility, except for a small number of specialty pieces that are rarely used.

By increasing what we produce ourselves, we have removed a major delay in the supply chain and improved our ability to move customer buildings through production more efficiently.

Increasing In-House Cold-Formed Steel Production to ~100%

This new purlin line also increases speed, allowing production to move faster and more efficiently. With both manufacturing lines working together, we have made important progress toward reducing lead times and shortening customer wait times. For customers, this means projects can move forward with greater confidence and fewer delays. Construction schedules often depend on materials arriving when expected, and even small setbacks can affect budgets and timelines.

The new machinery allows Great Western Buildings to produce a wider variety of framing components locally in Colorado, including:

C-channel secondary framing pieces
Heavy-duty, larger-scale components
Custom cold-formed steel building parts

Rapid Replacement Parts and Component Damage Mitigation

Expanding our internal manufacturing also strengthens our ability to respond quickly when issues arise. While we work hard to ensure every order arrives complete and in a timely manner, unexpected situations can happen during shipping and during construction. Components may occasionally be damaged in transit or more frequently at the jobsite during construction.

Because we now manufacture these parts ourselves, replacement components can be produced and shipped directly from our facility. Instead of waiting on an outside supplier, customers can receive support more quickly and get back to work with less disruption. This is especially valuable for customers working with contractors, where delays can quickly increase project costs. Combining this new production with our 24/7 customer support hotline means we’re ready to solve any issues as rapidly as we can.

Old Process: Waiting weeks for an outside supplier to fabricate and ship a replacement part.
New GWB Process: Immediate local fabrication and direct shipping from the Grand Junction plant, minimizing costly downtime for field crews

Investing in Customers and Community

At Great Western, improving the customer experience remains the focal point of what we do. Faster production and greater control over manufacturing allow us to provide more dependable service while helping customers avoid delays and unexpected costs.

We are also proud of what this growth means for our community. Great Western employs more than one hundred local workers in Colorado, and we take pride in our ability to confidently call our products American made with American steel. As we continue to grow, our focus remains simple: deliver exactly what our customers are expecting within the expected timeframe, and help customers complete projects with confidence.