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It Happens!

October 17, 2009

In the spring of 2007, at Interfor’s annual general meeting in Vancouver, Duncan Davies, president of Interfor, announced plans to spend $100 million on a new state-of-the-art sawmill with specific design features to accommodate pine beetle-killed wood. Lodgepole pine and the mountain pine beetle have always co-existed as a natural part of the ecosystem in British Columbia’s interior forests. But the combination of an increased abundance of mature lodgepole pine within the province, along with several consecu- tive mild winters and drought-like summers, has resulted in an increase in the beetles’ populations, which have reached epidemic levels. The Ministry of Forests and Range estimates that as of 2008 the cumulative area of Provincial Crown forest affected by the pine beetle was about 14.5 million hectares, an area more than four times the size of Vancouver Island. Although the beetle-affected wood may contain some staining, it still retains wood’s natural structural properties, and can be used for anything from standard framing lumber to value-added wood products. As such, in some areas, annual allowable cuts have been increased as an emergency measure for salvaging or recovering the greatest value possible from beetle-attacked lumber.

The new mill would be built at Interfor’s existing site in Adams Lake, B.C., centrally located close to large tracts of infested trees, and home to the then-current operating mill. “The new mill at Adams Lake is specifically designed to address the challenge of timber killed by the mountain pine beetle,” Davies advised. “There has been a whole series of considerations built into the design of this new facility to facilitate the processing of small wood and pine-beetle-impacted wood.” Interfor’s Chairman, Bill Sauder, agreed: “We did a tremendous amount of research to see that we are doing the right thing before we moved on it.” The existing sawmill is scheduled to close permanently once the new Adams Lake sawmill is completed this year.

By spring of 2008, with the construction of the foundations for the new mill underway, Interfor awarded the contract to Colony to supply and install the steel building structure for the new mill in April that same year. The building itself was a very complicated structure, and challenging design-wise, where nothing was standard in any way. “The complete project had very few similar parts or components. Each frame line had a different bay length dimension and varying load capacities. The complete building was built onto a conventional steel floor and had multiple varying column elevations,” advised Shawn Lochbaum, vice president of business development for Colony. “On top of all of this, we had to work in an extremely confined space on-site, with a lot of co-ordination with other trades and equipment suppliers and installers for access, as well as working over most of the equipment already installed,” Shawn continued, “quite a logistical challenge really.” Ches Piercy, project manager for Interfor agreed: “We were actually snaking right in amongst the existing structure so it’s a very crowded project; it was very congested. Half of the project is actually locked up on three sides by existing facilities, so it was very hard to do, hard to manage, very tight, and hard to work.” But these anticipated difficulties were, unfortunately, soon added to by some unanticipated ones.

Brian Miller, project administration manager for Behlen Industries, the supplier of the building components, explains, “when we did get this order (Adams Lake), there were numerous other fairly large orders that also came in right around the same time, and of course everybody wanted their deliveries about the same time. It was unusual to get that many large orders all at once, and it really put a stress on our engineering group to get things going, as well as the project management group to get everything together for engineering, to be sure they had all the information they required.” “The other thing we were faced with,” adds Pat Versavel, Behlen’s vice president of operations, “was other clients placing orders (with Behlen) in February that actually didn’t get started until May or June, due to lack of final information.” How could this all just happen? Brian explains further, “I think that it had something to do with the steel prices. They were increasing dramatically in the spring and I think everybody wanted to beat any further increases.” The inevitable result of all of this was that building deliveries were extended beyond the required schedule dates, in some cases for weeks. All of this was a tragic blow to the project and the Interfor construction group.

“To be frank, it was a disappointment the way it started out,” spoke Jim Davis firmly, general manager for Interfor Pacific and the lead individual on the project. “They took on more work than they could handle and couldn’t deliver the building on time. I think their engineers were overwhelmed with parts of the project and that slowed them down as well.”

“The deliveries caused us grief to get going,” added Ches Piercy. “It was just slow off the mark, and unfortunate. Behlen was behind the eight ball and the Colony folks went out (to Behlen’s Brandon, Manitoba plant) to see them, and said “what are you doing?” “We had record bookings for that period of time,” confirmed Behlen’s Pat Versavel. “I think we did everything we could; we went to an outside detailing service and we looked at some other software packages to try and help.”

It became increasingly obvious to Colony that if any time was to be made up in the schedule, it would have to be done in the field, and that was going to be very difficult to achieve, considering the site conditions talked about earlier. “You’re under the gun to perform and you’re the guys on-site, so you take all the heat,” Ches Piercy explained, “but you know, if you don’t have the steel to put up, it’s pretty hard, right?” Adding to the difficulty was the fact that quali- fied labour resources, at the time, were also overbooked and in extremely limited supply. “Colony was able to locate and provide an additional, completely separate erecting company that was added to the mix to work on the building roof and wall cladding,” advised John Grime, Colony’s project manager. “This allowed the original erector we had to concentrate his complete efforts towards getting the structural steel in place.” The schedule was finally showing promise of being able to catch up, but the complexity of the project, the limited workspace and the demands of an expedited schedule inevitably proved too much for the original erector to complete. John Grime explained that “we were in a tight spot; Colony was obligated to meet the schedule and it became painfully obvious to us that we were not going to be able to accomplish this with the original erector.” Colony then brought in a third erecting company to replace the first one and the new company, which had access to more resources, and this started things moving right away. “We were able to come to an amicable arrangement with the first erector, keeping in mind our commitment to the owner as well as the schedule,” advised John. “The arrangement facilitated the inclusion of the original erector, as well as some of his equipment, and with the co-operation of everyone involved, we were finally able to get the project back on track and completed within the scheduled time.”

Behlen also stepped up to help as well, where and when they could. “Behlen is committed to the success of our builders and we didn’t take the situation lightly.” added Pat Versavel. “You go out and seek the solution and it takes time. Working with Colony and the extra resources that Colony had put on the project we ultimately got the project back into a reasonable time frame.”

“I think Colony, John Grime, and the crew made a serious effort to get things back on track,” Jim Davis further advised. “I think the guys were behind from the start and that didn’t help matters, but I think Colony have made a serious attempt to remedy any of the situations as they’ve come along, and not just giving it lip service.” Ches agreed, “John has been a great guy to work with-he’s been very professional about it. Colony had to work closely with the erector onsite to get the schedule tightened up, and John did that, and went the extra mile, so that was good!” But from Colony’s perspective, there was much more than that. “This could have been a disaster waiting to happen if it had not been for the leadership and pro-active stance adopted by the Interfor Construction Team.” spoke John Grime. “Their efforts in coordinating all this activity and pulling it all together, not only with professionalism, but with consideration to the schedule and a high regard to the safety and welfare of all involved, were exemplary.”

Interfor is one of North America’s leading wood products companies. Interfor, Interfor Pacific, and Adams Lake brands are renowned for their quality in markets in the US and around the world. More information on Interfor is available on their website at www.Interfor.com.

Endnote:

Ches Piercy is an independent contractor, who worked on behalf of Interfor, providing management and consulting services. Ches can be reached at:

ches piercy consulting limited
591 nassau crescent
qualicum beach, bc v9k 1c6
T: (250) 752-8508

© 2008, Colony Management Inc..
www.colonybuildings.com

It Happens!
Posted by Colony Management on Saturday, October 17th, 2009


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