High-Flying Steel: New Maintenance Platforms for Crown Cork & Seal
Half a million pounds of industrial steel erected 16-feet off the floor!
JR Merit continues to expand in the Puget Sound and South Puget Sound, which is an area with strong presence among the manufacturing, industrial, and maritime industries. One of our most recently completed projects in the South Sound is a complex addition of four steel equipment and maintenance platforms at Crown Cork and Seal’s aluminum can manufacturing plant in Olympia, Washington to support a new production line. As the prime contractor, JR Merit led a detailed, phased approach to fabricate and erect these platforms while the plant remained fully occupied and operational.
Meticulous Inventory and Production Coordination
Our team fabricated and managed inventory of more than 2,600 steel members that comprised the platforms, including columns, beams, braces, handrails, grating, and pipe supports. More than 90-percent of these components were unique, requiring detailed daily inventory accounting. The project site was also extremely constrained, with one narrow access road to unload, stage, and move materials in and out of the plant, and up to 10 contractors working on site at any one time. We carefully planned shipping, production tracking, and staging to maintain a smooth flow of our team’s work, equipment, and materials.
Thorough Safety for Above-Floor Installation
All materials were erected from an average height of 16 feet above finished floor, requiring a thorough safety approach to mitigate fall hazards and safely erect nearly 500,000 pounds of steel. We also navigated around concrete trenches and sump pits directly beneath the new platforms.
JR Merit and team successfully managed this complex work and completed the project in only four months. That might not be faster than a speeding bullet, but it’s pretty efficient, and we came in on time, on budget, and with no disruptions to plant operations.