Pace Dairy – Maddox is currently involved in an equipment relocation project for Pace Dairy to reconfigure a cheese line. Not only are we performing the design and work required to make its old line fit with new equipment, but we are also helping the dairy work through measurement, coordination and manufacturer challenges as well.  Years ago, Pace Dairy was a small customer for us. It has been fun to see how our expanded capabilities and abilities have really enabled us to grow our relationship with Pace from where it was during those early years.

Zimmer Custom-Made Packaging – Zimmer recently asked us to come up with a piece of equipment to lift its media rolls onto one of its machines.  The long-time leader in the flexible packaging market had been doing it the same way for years, but the outdated technique was becoming unsafe and unreliable.  Working with an outside manufacturer, Maddox was able to come up with a lift table machine to better handle the rolls. Sounds great, right? As in everything else in a plant, surprise challenges have surfaced as we have made our way through the installation planning phase.  Maddox is currently working through all of the kinks to make sure that Zimmer gets the solution that it asked for.

JFS America – Continuing work in Scottsburg, Ind., to help JFS reconfigure an old steel cord plant into a specialty wire manufacturing facility, Maddox has upped the ante over the last few weeks to help the company meet some tight deadlines.  By shifting manpower and talent to that facility, Maddox has gotten JFS closer its target time line.  But it’s all easier said than done. The reality is that only through strong communication, on-site decision-making capabilities and excellent vendor support that we have been able to help JFS.  Sometimes, adding resources just adds waste.  We have shown through this project how to make the resources pay off for our customer.

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The business of industrial contracting has changed. When your bottom line involves a combination of cost, task competency and safety considerations, the traditional model of awarding a job to the lowest-bidding contractor often isn’t the best choice in the long run.

Before getting too far into any project, plant engineers and owners should have a clear understanding of how contracting is being done these days.

Years ago when a contractor was hired, he carried out most of the work. The contractor was at the job site, using his know-how to the benefit of the customer and personally overseeing workers. These days, most contractors aren’t so involved in the actual implementation of the work being done. And there is very little communication between the engineer who designed the plan the contractor hiring the sub-contractors and workers who are carrying out the plan. It simply doesn’t make sense.

Thinking twice about how you award a job and getting your engineer and contractor together before a project has been designed will positively yield a more efficient, economical design. This isn’t the norm, but it is the best way to accomplish any project.

Download 2 Critical Ways to Save Time, Money and Headaches by Maddox Technical Lead/Project Manager Cory Dalton. Cory more thoroughly explores the best ways to carry out projects that require engineering and construction when time and money are critical factors.

Project. At Cargill Dry Corn, a mill (essentially a large grinding machine) needed to be replaced with a new, larger machine. The existing mill sat on a thick concrete inertia pad that was too small for the new mill. An engineering firm prepared a drawing showing the pad to be increased in size by adding reinforced concrete to each end. The plan was to pull the old mill off and pour the new areas of concrete. The new mill would be set on the larger concrete pad. All of this was to take place in a three-day window to minimize the mill’s loss of production. Sounds pretty straightforward, right?

Surprise Challenge. As soon as the old mill was removed, a new challenge arose. The old mill was not just simply sitting on top of the old pad with anchor bolts holding it down. In several places, the mill was attached to structural steel embedded in the top of the pad. This left us a pad with so many obstructions sticking out of the top that they could not be removed well enough to provide a level bearing surface for the new mill.

Solution. Maddox took immediate action and designed a system of support plates spanning across the top of the uneven bearing surfaces to create an elevated, level and load-bearing surface above the obstructions. Maddox completed the design and implementation of the fix so quickly that no additional downtime was required. And the daily grind continued.

At Maddox, we do everything in our power to ensure the highest levels of safety are being met. We don’t do this just because contractors have to meet certain standards. We do it more out of a sense of responsibility to the people on the project. And here I’m talking about your project. Not our project.

As with anything, jobs can go well and jobs can go poorly, but if someone gets hurt, it’s horrific. An injury affects individuals. It affects families. It is a serious issue that we take personally.

If a plant’s safety policies aren’t as strict as ours, we stick to ours. Most contractors only work to the required standards of their customers, but we have found that sometimes that is not enough. The potential for injury is never something we want to sidestep. We want to handle any potential risks upfront and deal with them as well as we can from the get-go.

Our high standards mean there are no shortcuts when it comes to safety. Unlike a lot of contractors, Maddox prepares pre-job checklists solely related to safety for every job. Weekly toolbox talks are also part of our process. The reality is, customers pay for safety. Chances are, a very low bidder on a job might be cutting corners when it comes to safety.

An industrial project is just like any other transaction. Getting hurt shouldn’t be a part of the buying or selling process. We work to be safe. Period.

We are proud to be able to associate ourselves with some big-name clients, but those household names are just that: brand names. Those brands aren’t evaluating our performance.

Likewise, when our guys are on a job, we aren’t trying to impress a chief executive. We focus on the individuals we are directly working with and the people who have hired us. Those are the guys we want to make happy.

This level of customer service is all about “personal impact.” It’s about satisfying individual people. That impact is made through every step in a project, from the initial meeting to project completion.

If that kind of one-on-one treatment sounds like how you like to business, contact us. We would love to make you happy.