Twelve questions, the answer that should worry you, and what a good answer sounds like. Written to be used against us as much as against anyone else — our own answers are at the bottom, including the three that are no.
If you are sourcing fabricated or hot-dip galvanized steel from India for the first time, the hard part is not finding suppliers. It is that every one of them will tell you they are ISO certified, experienced and competitive, and none of those words distinguishes anybody.
What separates suppliers is a small number of specific, checkable facts. Here they are, with the answers that should make you pause. We have deliberately included the questions where our own answer is a no — a checklist that only its author passes is an advertisement, not a checklist.
Ask these of any supplier, in this order. The first four settle most of it.
| Ask this | The answer that should worry you | What a good answer sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Is the galvanizing yours, or sub-contracted? | “We have a tie-up with a galvanizer.” Nobody in that chain will commit to a coating figure in writing, and your inspector visits two plants. | A kettle at the same address as the welding, with its dimensions given without being asked. |
| 2. What are the kettle dimensions? | A refusal, or a vague “large capacity”. It decides whether your member is dipped once or twice. | Three numbers — length, width, depth — and an unprompted explanation of what happens to anything longer. |
| 3. What coating do you hold, in microns or g/m²? | “As per IS” or “as per standard”. Neither names a coating mass or a test. It is the cheapest possible reading of your specification. | A number, the standard it satisfies, and an offer to report DFT readings per batch. |
| 4. Will you put the coating figure in the quotation? | “We will confirm at the time of order.” The figure is the price. A supplier who will not write it down has left themselves room. | Yes, against the section thicknesses on your drawing — because coating requirements vary with thickness. |
| 5. Is your laboratory NABL-accredited? | Silence, or “we have a full lab” without addressing accreditation. Several Indian utility specifications require NABL type-test reports dated within a stated period, and finding out late stops a prequalification at the final step. | A straight yes or no. If no, how NABL testing is arranged and who pays. |
| 6. Which standard are you quoting to — IS, ASTM or EN? | Treating them as interchangeable. ASTM A123 on structural shapes over ¼ in asks 100 µm; IS 4759 and EN ISO 1461 land near 85. That is about 18% more zinc on the same steel. | A question back: which one does your specification actually call for? |
| 7. Do you hold EN 1090? | “We work to EN standards.” That is not the same thing. EN 1090 is a certification with an audit behind it. | Yes with a certificate number, or a plain no. Both are respectable; the evasion is not. |
| 8. Do you hold PVoC, SONCAP or SABER? | “Yes, we hold them.” Nobody holds them. They are per-shipment conformity schemes arranged after an order exists. A supplier claiming otherwise is describing something that does not work that way — and you have just learned how carefully they choose words. | An explanation that they are arranged per shipment, and a question about your destination port. |
| 9. How many direct exports have you actually made? | A list of countries with no detail, or “we export worldwide”. Ask who was the exporter of record. Steel supplied to an Indian EPC that later shipped it is not the same as exporting. | A specific number, with dates, and a clear line between direct exports and material supplied through a client. |
| 10. Can we inspect, and at which stages? | “Inspection is welcome” with no stages named. Stages get negotiated during production, which is exactly when you have no leverage. | Named agencies, and hold and witness points agreed before production starts. |
| 11. What is your transit time to our port? | A confident number. Transit belongs to the shipping line, the transhipment hub and the season. A supplier who quotes it is quoting something they do not control. | The line's schedule at booking, and an offer to obtain it. |
| 12. Which items on this bill of materials do you actually make? | “We supply everything.” Almost nobody makes every accessory. The question is not whether they buy some in — it is whether they will tell you which. | A marked-up bill of materials showing made and bought-in, before you order. |
Questions 1, 2, 3 and 12 are the ones that most often change a decision, and all four can be answered in a single email. If a supplier cannot answer them in one reply, that is itself the answer.
This question gets asked, and the honest answer is that it depends on what you are buying and where it is going. For very high volumes of identical members with a long lead time, Chinese tower makers are formidable and there is no point pretending otherwise.
Where India tends to win is the shape of work that suits it: shorter runs, more variety, drawings that change, closer time zones for English-language correspondence, and a shorter sea leg to East Africa, the Gulf and South Asia. What matters more than the country is whether the specific supplier you are talking to can answer the twelve questions above — and plenty of Indian suppliers cannot.
Same twelve questions, asked of Indo East.
| Question | Indo East |
|---|---|
| 1. Galvanizing yours or sub-contracted? | Ours. On our own floor at Howrah since 2018, in the same company as the welding. |
| 2. Kettle dimensions? | 7.0 m × 1.2 m × 1.6 m, at about 450 °C. Anything longer than 7.0 m is double-dipped, which leaves a visible overlap line — we raise it before quoting. |
| 3. Coating held? | 75–85 microns as standard, on a calibrated DFT gauge, recorded per batch. That satisfies IS 4759 at 610 g/m² and the 85 µm mean of EN ISO 1461. |
| 4. Coating figure in the quotation? | Yes, against the section thicknesses on your drawing. |
| 5. NABL-accredited laboratory? | No. The lab is real — Bruker Q2 ION spectrometer, universal testing machine, Rockwell tester, calibrated DFT gauges — but it is not accredited. NABL testing is arranged with an accredited laboratory against the order. |
| 6. IS, ASTM or EN? | Any of the three. We will tell you at quotation where they genuinely differ, because on coating they differ by about 18% of the zinc. |
| 7. EN 1090? | No. It is a real certification with a real audit and we do not hold it. If your contract requires CE marking to EN 1090, say so at enquiry and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth either of us continuing. |
| 8. PVoC, SONCAP, SABER? | No, and nobody does. They are arranged per shipment once an order exists. |
| 9. Direct exports? | One. Fabricated structural steel to the Maldives, January 2018, under our own Import Export Code 0211004090. Indo East steel is also on a 50 MW solar project in Togo, supplied through a client rather than shipped by us. Those are the only two. |
| 10. Inspection stages? | SGS, Bureau Veritas, TÜV, DNV, Intertek or your own agency, at stages agreed before production. Because fabrication and galvanizing are both ours, one visit covers both. |
| 11. Transit time? | We do not publish one. We will get the line's schedule at booking. |
| 12. Made or bought-in? | Structures are ours. Some line hardware and accessories we buy in and galvanize; we mark which against your bill of materials before you order. |
Three noes out of twelve. We would rather you had them here than discovered them during prequalification — and if a competitor's answer sheet has no noes on it at all, that is worth a second look.
Answered from our own line, not from the standard's cover page.
Whether the galvanizing is theirs or sub-contracted, and what the kettle dimensions are. If the coating is done at another plant, no one in the chain will commit to a coating figure in writing, your inspector has to visit two sites, and a coating problem becomes something your supplier chases rather than something they own.
No. Nearly every serious Indian fabricator holds ISO 9001, including us. It means a management system was independently audited, which is worth having, but it says nothing about coating thickness or about whether a supplier can hold your specification.
No, and the claim is a warning sign. ASTM A123, IS 4759 and EN ISO 1461 are specifications that material is supplied and certified against, not certificates a plant is issued. A galvanizer galvanizes to them and issues the readings. EN 1090 is different: that is a real certification with a real audit behind it.
It depends on the work. For very high volumes of identical members with a long lead time, Chinese tower makers are formidable and there is no point pretending otherwise. India tends to suit shorter runs, more variety, drawings that change during a project, English-language correspondence in a closer time zone, and a shorter sea leg to East Africa, the Gulf and South Asia. The supplier matters more than the country.
Because a checklist only its author passes is an advertisement. Our three noes are EN 1090, a NABL-accredited laboratory, and a long direct export record. You would find all three out anyway, and finding them out late is expensive for you and embarrassing for us. A supplier who is straight about what they lack is easier to believe about everything else.
In practice, nothing enforceable. It names no coating mass, no thickness and no test method. Indian utility specifications usually state 610 grams per square metre; EN ISO 1461 states an 85 micron mean; ASTM A123 states 100 microns for structural shapes over a quarter inch. Ask which figure applies and get it into the quotation, because that line is where quotations differ most and it is invisible in a price comparison.
Tell us the standard, the coating requirement and the component, and we will confirm in writing what we can hold and how we will certify it. Galvanizing is on our own floor, so the answer comes from us and not from a sub-contractor.
Request a quotation Galvanizing job work