Manufacturers — The Factory Side of the Directory
The Situation
A manufacturer's product is an approved design, repeated. Judge it the way the program does: on the discipline of the design, the inspection regime behind the label, and the honesty of the boundary at the factory wall.
Standing first: the manufacturer's approval runs through a state program and an approved third-party agency. The facts to gather are the program for your state, the agency behind the label, and whether the design you are buying is approved as configured — options and alternates included — or only as a base unit.
Line discipline shows in the paperwork: data plates tying each unit to its approved set, inspection records from the floor, and published loads and anchor patterns issued early enough for your site engineer to design against. A plant that publishes its loads late is scheduling your foundation delay.
The boundary conversation is the tell. A strong manufacturer states plainly what its approval never covers — foundation, seams, site — and coordinates the split. A weak one lets the brochure imply a whole building. The five tests on this site run against manufacturers exactly as written.
Do manufacturers provide the foundation design?
No — and a manufacturer who implies otherwise is failing the honesty test. Foundations are site engineering: designed from your soils and the plant's published loads, sealed by a licensee of your state, and permitted locally. The manufacturer's job is to publish its loads and anchor pattern early and accurately; the site firm's job is everything under the box.
