The manufacturing process of cold-formed steel sections induces cold work in members and affects their behaviour and strength. This paper provides a summary of a comprehensive study on the effect of the manufacturing process on the structural behaviour of press-braked sections. In this study, the manufacturing process of press-braked carbon steel sections and stainless steel sections was closely modelled to predict residual stresses and equivalent plastic strains in the section. These models are first introduced and their accuracy demonstrated by comparing their predictions with existing laboratory measurements. Based on the predicted residual stresses and equivalent plastic strains as a means to quantify the amount of cold work, an advanced numerical approach is presented, which is capable of capturing the effect of cold work on the structural behaviour of press-braked sections. With this advanced numerical approach, the effect of cold work arising from forming on the structural behaviour can be accurately assessed, provided that the basic geometric and mechanical properties of the virgin sheet material are known. The results obtained from this study explain why both residual stresses and column behaviour of cold-formed sections may differ considerably in nominally identical sections.