To ensure safety and minimize the risk of operational shutdowns at a time of high demand, many mills commission a structural assessment of critical facilities. Such assessments typically involve an analysis and evaluation of foundations, framings, and associated construction systems and details. The objective is to determine existing load capacity, identify structural deficiencies, and assess the causes and impacts of potential structural failures.

The extent of such an assessment depends on the condition and complexity of the resource examined, its current or intended use, and the amount of information available or attainable. But whatever the particular circumstances, mills want clear recommendations to correct structural deficiencies – or a new structural design with specific engineering solutions.

Expertise needed

It’s important to investigate thoroughly and know what you’re looking for. For example, in a recent review for one customer, a Crow engineer investigated the performance and construction of bowstring trusses. What initially appeared to be a tension (bottom) chord failure was actually a symptom of a more serious issue: the failure of the compression (top) chord. READ MORE

Essentially, the top chord was compromised and shortened. This caused the more noticeable failure of the bottom chord.

Using an animation, our engineer, simulated on-site conditions and showed what would happen to the truss if the compression chord failed. The animation made it clear that as the compression chord failed, it shortened – causing the tension chord failure. While applying a tension chord splint would alleviate the secondary failure (bottom chord), it would also increase load to the compression chord and exacerbate the primary failure mechanism.

To ensure the safety of this truss chordcompression (top) chord needed to be supported. Critically, it was determined that supporting the truss through the bottom chord only (and only on one side of the shoring tower) would have increased the load in the web members, causing the failure of web members,  shear plates, and strap plates. These conclusions led our engineer to recommend a shoring design to be put in place as soon as possible.

The three levels of a structural assessment

Structural assessments vary. Generally speaking, there are three varieties:  

• Cursory Assessment
  Visual overview of the general condition of the building envelope. It is often used for screening multiple buildings to establish priorities for maintenance and repair or further study.
• Preliminary Assessment
  Site visit to identify problem areas, review available documents, interview of involved parties, and generate a preliminary report of findings and recommendations.
• Detailed Assessment
  Review of documentation, component classification, field investigation, testing, analysis, and report.

Each assessment should be supplemented with a structural assessment report. Such a report looks at working conditions and makes recommendations for immediate and short-term repairs – all based on visual observation, measuring, video/photography, sampling, testing, analysis, and documentation depending on the level of the assessment.

Faulty construction, unsafe structural conditions for gravity and wind/snow loads, substantial structural damage due to deterioration – all of these can be identified with a structural assessment. Addressing these issues can help prevent further facility damage, collapse, equipment loss or damage, and – most importantly – accidents and fatalities.

Do you have structural questions? Call (503) 213-2013 or email Crow info@crowengineering.com to schedule a consultation. Our registered Professional Engineers (PE) can provide a structural assessment and report to evaluate your structural conditions and needs.

It would be difficult to argue that American manufacturing is in a slump. In March 2021, activity in the sector surged to a 37-year high.

Yet at the same time, an estimated half million jobs in manufacturing remain unfilled. Across the spectrum – from low-skilled entry-level positions to specialized roles such as welders and machinists — factory operators find it increasingly difficult to find the workers they need.

According to a study published by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, as many as 2.1 million manufacturing jobs will be unfilled through 2030. At the same time, approximately 2.7 million workers are expected to retire over the coming decade while business growth will result in the need for 700,000 new jobs.

Manufacturing executives cite two main reasons for the current predicament. The first is obvious enough: there simply aren’t enough workers with the skills and training needed for modern manufacturing.

The second reason has more to do with the expectations of today’s American workforce. Younger workers, for instance, reject factory jobs as stationary, low-knowledge work with few prospects for advancement. Many believe manufacturing jobs are obsolete and will be replaced by robots and overseas competition. Other options – such as technical or professional pathways in other industries – seem more attractive. And, of course, there’s always the side hustle alternative. Increasingly, workers can find flexible and fulfilling work through options such as Uber, social media, freelancing, and more.

Adding to the mix is the phenomenon of the great job migration, where many employees are reevaluating their work and leaving their current employers to find more desirable jobs elsewhere. If your company is facing these headwinds, consider the following tips for attracting and keeping valued manufacturing employees.

Show them the money
Many manufacturing positions require fairly basic capabilities – such as following directions, willingness to learn, and follow-through. Think of positions such as assemblers, production work helpers, and hand-held tool cutters.

Traditionally, these jobs may have been categorized as entry-level and minimum wage. Things have changed. Today’s factories compete with entry-level talent from warehouses and distribution centers run by the likes of Amazon, Costco, and Walmart who pay $15 per hour or more. To keep pace, factory employers are aggressively boosting pay to attract the best employees.

Manufacturers also are increasing the shift differential paid for work on second and third shifts – the jobs often assigned to new hires out of respect for the preferences of more tenured employees. Higher second and third shift pay rates can aid recruitment, without increasing labor costs on the traditionally coveted first shift. FedEx Express, for example, is adding $2 per hour to the wages of night operations employees at its World Hub in Memphis, Tennessee. 

Bring sexy back
If manufacturing jobs seem unattractive for today’s workers, maybe it’s time to bring sexy back. To attract employees, many companies are initiating sign-on bonuses after the successful completion of a probationary period (typically 60-90 days). Others are adding or increasing bonuses paid to current employees who refer successful job candidates.

Schedule flexibility is attractive to new hires as well. Some companies offer flex schedules where fulltime may not be a requirement and the ability to move between shifts is facilitated. Others offer flexible vacation schedules so that employees can take a day off here and there to take advantage of the good things in life – like the beginning of hunting season, a child’s school event, or maybe the chance to go to a ball game on short notice.

To keep employees motivated (especially younger workers with the right skill sets), smart manufacturers are also investing in worker training and focusing on career growth. During the hiring process, these companies set realistic career expectations for new employees – with clear roadmaps and timelines regarding pay raises, promotions, and training opportunities.

When it comes to attracting and retaining good and loyal employees, the role of company culture should not be overlooked. Companies can minimize turnover and show that they care about their employees with straightforward measures such as maintaining a comfortable, clean, and safe environment. If employees are still quitting, managers need to initiate open up the lines of communication. Managers who encourage input and feedback aren’t just building stronger teams, they’re building strong company cultures.

Personal touches count too. Celebrate team milestones, host a quarterly barbeque, provide positive feedback, and encourage creativity. Foster respect, encourage a healthy work-life balance, connect with team members, and provide the tools they need to succeed. “Little things” like these can play a big role when it comes to keeping employees happy and productive.

Know where your workforce is coming from
Many manufacturers are implementing strategies that target specific populations with a tailored recruiting approach. Some pursue military veterans, others help to enroll students at nearby trade schools and community colleges. Trade associations are also helping their members by establishing relationships with schools and workforce organizations.

Historically, companies have required a basic grasp of the English language. Today – particularly amid the COVID-19 pandemic – many companies have dropped this requirement, thus widening the available pool of potential workers. To attract Spanish-speaking workers, for example, some companies are placing Spanish-language billboards throughout their cities and are sponsoring events such as Hispanic Festivals to speak about employment opportunities.

Finally, to rebuild the employee pipeline, many manufacturers are revamping their hiring requirements across a range of areas. Traditional requirements – such as marijuana screenings and drug tests, disqualifying convictions, high school diplomas, and prior experience – are now being deemphasized or eliminated entirely.

You can’t control everything, but you can be proactive
In normal times, people quitting jobs in large numbers is a sign of a healthy economy with plentiful jobs. But these are not normal times. The pandemic has led to a massive recession here in the U.S. Millions of people are still out of jobs. Yet, employers now face severe labor shortages – even as pandemic life recedes.
The younger generation is leaving jobs in search of more money, flexibility, and happiness. Many are rethinking what work means to them, how they are valued, and how they spend their time. Rather than clock in at the same company for 40 years, today’s workers are more willing to switch jobs frequently if it means getting the income they need and a schedule they want. And if their current position won’t let them pay down debt or fully support their lifestyle, today’s workers now have the means to add a side hustle to earn extra money.

Ultimately, there is no way you can control every aspect of your team’s work experience. If someone wants to leave, there is little you can do. That said, proactive measures as described here can do wonders to keep employees happy in the first place – while improving the performance and cohesiveness of your workforce. The result is increased employee satisfaction and loyalty.

At Crow, we’re here to help you in such efforts. We can provide operational and maintenance training to support your employees and management team. We can also help with training to your Spanish-speaking personnel. Need a hand? Give us a call and learn more about how Crow can help: (503) 213-2013. 

When it comes to upgrading conveyors, it’s important to move deliberately. For starters, you’ll need to assess the space, infrastructure, and equipment in place. Because a conveyor expansion or modification represents a substantial capital investment, you’ll also want to carefully analyze all available options. You need to weigh benefits against costs and assess your tolerance for risk.

At Crow, we are continuously involved in projects to help customers achieve and exceed their expansion goals. In our experience, when designing conveyor layouts, it’s important to consider the following during the conveyor design process. Going through these simple considerations can greatly reduce design mistakes and help you avoid costly operational downtime in the future.

• Material
  What is being conveyed? What is the product size, composition, flowability? How will the material behave as it is being handled or processed? These questions help you figure out the best type of conveyor and chain to choose for the uses you have in mind.
• Operation
  Here, we consider operational requirements around function and performance. A key metric is the amount of material you intend to convey in a specified timeframe. Knowing the demand for such material at each process or operation point will guide your decision-making from the start. Also consider hours of operation. How often do you expect the conveyor to run?
• Environment
  Every conveyor runs in some type of environment. What is your environment like? Can it withstand the rigors of relevant environmental extremes – such as temperature, humidity, corrosion, vibration, etc.? Another important question: Are their open sources of ignition? Will the environment be flammable or explosive? Answers to these questions might lead you to consider explosion-proof motors, corrosion-resistant bearings and shafts, or other design choices.
• Footprint of conveying system
  Your conveyor needs to fit in the space allotted. When designing new or modified conveyor equipment, particularly when some portions of the system already exist, important considerations include infeed/discharge elevations, centerlines, and the operational speeds of existing machines that work with the conveyor. Also, is anything in the way? Do you have to avoid columns, ceilings, walkways, mezzanines, material staging areas, or pedestrian or forklift traffic?
• Maintenance
  How easy will it be to perform regular preventive maintenance? Can you quickly swap out chains, bearings, motors, belts, shafts, sprockets, etc.? These are important design considerations with an obvious goal – to maximize maintenance efficiency and minimize the potential for costly downtime that comes with machine failure.
• Conveyor components
  Is your conveyor designed with components that are easily sourced? Can they handle the environment? Are they available from local distributors? Are they cost effective? The last thing you want is for operations to come to halt for want of an essential part that’s difficult to find.
• Safety
  Does your conveyor design follow applicable OSHA requirements and local laws? Does it have proper guarding at pinch points or known hazardous areas? If pinch points/hazards cannot be guarded, could you fence off the conveyor or system to restrict access and potential accidents?
• History
  Be sure to listen to the experts. They’ll provide insight into what has and hasn’t worked in the past. When replacing existing equipment, the importance of functionality, reliability, and service history should not be overlooked. At the same time, your own history is critical. If conveyor reliability or functionality has been an issue for you in the past, understanding these issues can lead to suitable design changes and countermeasures. The result is more satisfactory results for your material flow goals.

Trust in Crow

By considering the questions discussed here – and by remaining in constant communication with the customer – Crow has helped many customers achieve their conveyor design goals. We provide full design or on-call engineering for small and fast-track projects that need to be handled quickly with a minimum of expense. We manage the initial design and can also support the project throughout construction.

If you have conveyor modification, upgrades, and expansion plans, be sure to tap the kind of expertise that can help you avoid mistakes, minimize costs, and ensure success. Give Crow a ring at (503) 213-2013. We’d be happy to talk. 

Structures and equipment don’t last forever. At some point, they begin to exhibit signs of wear and tear. Eventually, you need to take action.

The enemy is procrastination. Last minute repairs are costly – particularly when equipment has already failed and production has come to a halt.

Neither do you necessarily want to rip and replace. New equipment is nice – but a simple cost-benefit analysis often shows that keeping existing equipment up and running (perhaps with modifications) makes the best financial and business sense.      

Which is what ‘brownfield” plant modernization is all about. There’s a lot of value in the equipment you already have – and with plant modernization, you can keep on generating value for years to come.

Let’s take a look at four reasons for moving forward:

Safety

When a worker becomes sick or injured, the business feels the effect. But potential safety risks can be anywhere – in degraded equipment or outdated building structures; in ventilation, electrical, and waste management systems; or even in manufacturing production processes.

A plant modernization initiative can focus on the present and future conditions of equipment, buildings, and manufacturing processes to help minimize safety risks. You can also assess when to replace, upgrade, and expand operations before it is too late. Modernization can be a big step forward when it comes to ensuring workers are operating in safer conditions.

Cost Savings

One big advantage of plant modernization is the financial savings – and these can be realized surprisingly fast. When scheduling and executing retrofits, upgrades, and expansions, it is important to consider downtime, mill flow, operating budget, and other factors. The goal is to maintain what’s working correctly, extend the life of existing equipment, and modify only what will provide ROI with minimum risk.

Direct replacement is an option – but when modernizing a process or a facility, a holistic, creative, and innovative approach that integrates old and new in an existing environment can pay far higher dividends. All different options should be examined and considered before starting demolition and pouring concrete.

Reliability

To serve customers consistently and maintain manufacturing productivity, having reliable systems in place is a must. Equipment lifespans of 30 years or more are common, and many facilities maintain operations for 40 to 60 years. Up-to-date equipment improves overall reliability by eliminating the faults that may occur as equipment ages. Unplanned power outages, costing thousands or millions of dollars, can be avoided with a well-designed upgrade plan that minimizes downtime to just a few hours or less.

Digital Capabilities

As technology continues to develop and improve, plants can benefit from integrating modernized equipment that facilitates cloud and Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity. Many digital components of electrical equipment tie directly into enhancing facility management – enabling plant managers to make smarter decisions. The result is actionable insights for managing and maintaining critical systems and avoiding unplanned downtime.

Getting Started

Plant modernization starts with a functional assessment to address issues in a quantitative way that considers business investment and ROI. Sometimes, such an assessment simply reaffirms your intuition about what is best for the facility from both physical and financial perspectives. Other times, it can uncover hidden issues you may not have seriously considered beforehand.

During this assessment, it is important to review existing building plans for the facility. If contemplating an addition, you may require a site survey. It is also important to gather and generate documents related to the age of the building. This documentation can be useful when it comes to resolving any environmental or code issues and evaluating existing mechanical systems.

For more than 50 years, Crow has provided plant modernization design services to help our customers avoid the costs associated with last minute upgrades and unplanned downtime. During a plant modernization project, we assist clients through the estimation, design, and construction phases. Design input is taken from plant, project, and maintenance managers, and floor personnel. Together we hold team meetings with all stakeholders across the organization and act as the primary point of contact for manufacturers, designers, engineers, and vendors. We are very flexible and can manage any and every individual task throughout the project.

Take, for instance, a recent sawmill modernization project that Crow helped to manage. By going brownfield – repurposing the current facility at the mill – the customer saved half a million dollars in capital expenses. This savings allowed us to significantly increase the roof capacity, add a bridge crane system that was more than 2.5x the capacity of the current system, and increase the span and reach of the crane system. In parallel, we engineered the support systems needed to fit all new saw equipment into the new space. Crow achieved 5% accuracy in project estimation costs. More importantly, the customer was able to get more value from its modernization effort – thanks to a brownfield approach that helps deliver better ROI.

Call 503-213-2013 or email us at inforequest@crowengineering.com to assess your modernization goals

by Brett W. King, PE, SE;
Structural Engineering Department Manager

In the first part of this article, we looked at the basics and dimensions of metal buildings for industrial settings. In this second part of the article, we explain the design criteria and specifications of pre-engineered metal buildings.

Design Criteria and Specifications

Design criteria are commonly specified by the building buyer to meet their specific needs. Specifications for buildings are usually a combination of drawings and written documents that provide the information needed by the metal building manufacturer. These documents can be used to get multiple bids for a building or to contract with a preferred vendor.

In some cases, a building buyer may frequently purchase metal buildings – with purchasing decisions often based on a very limited set of specifications. This may happen after a vendor has provided a number of buildings to a particular buyer and an understanding has been developed for just what the customer wants and what the vendor should deliver.

In other cases, organizations such as the Metal Building Manufacturers Association (MBMA) provide model specifications that can be used to order buildings with ordinary common specifications created by the MBNA. These specifications cover the most common criteria for siding and roofing material, design codes and structural loading, coatings, and more.

Building Layout and Finishes

It may be possible to specify simple buildings in text format via written specifications. However, it is usually more effective to prepare drawings that show the layout and dimensions of the building needed. This requires that the buyer to prepare drawings themselves or hire the services of an engineer or architect.

The advantage to this approach is that the building layout can be thought through carefully. Building dimensions, door and window sizes and locations, structural loading requirements, material types and colors, and much more can all be specified in advance. Issues such as inside clearances, eave height, and building width can all be worked out in detail prior to engaging bidders who may be interested in winning the project.

This effort is most critical when there are tight limit or requirements for inside clear height – for instance, to enclose equipment or to provide for the support of cranes.

Standard metal buildings will be delivered typically with a shop-applied coat of primer only. During development of the specifications, prior to bidding, is the time to determine if more appropriate and capable coatings are required. For buildings that may be subject to high humidity or corrosive materials, as may be the case for many industrial environments, special coatings should be considered. Frequently, these will not be provided by the manufacturer of the building but will be applied to the building after erection. It is important, though, to specify the proper primer for the coating intended for use after erection. The building manufacturer must be required to use any specified primers and include the product in their bid. 

Building Loading

Pre-engineered metal buildings must meet the requirements of the building code of the jurisdiction where the building will be built. Most of the loading criteria will be the minimum loads specified by ASCE 7 Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures. This building code specifies all of the required environmental loading for wind, earthquake, and snow that will occur at the site.

The gravity loads, or dead load weight of a building, are calculated directly from the dimensions of all components including rafters, purlins, insulation, and metal roofing. It is common to add an artificial superimposed dead load of 5 pounds per square foot (psf) to the design of roof purlins and rafters. This load is intended to accommodate additional weight of items such as lighting, sprinkler systems, and HVAC duct work of an ordinary nature. It should be noted that some manufacturers may use only 3 psf for this purpose. This will reduce costs but limits allowable loading by the building owner and is not usually recommended by specifying engineers.

Where a building buyer has special needs, additional loads must be clearly specified for the building manufacturer to consider while bidding and for design. Some examples of special loads that must be specified include cranes, hanging mechanical equipment, roof top supported equipment, and just about anything else that may exceed a 3 to 5 psf superimposed load. In some cases, it is helpful to simply specify a superimposed load that’s higher than 5 psf in order to provide a more robust oof structure.

Summary

In summary, this article provides a limited view into the design and specification of pre-engineered metal buildings. Please contact us to achieve the best results and receive a building that closely meets your needs. Crow can help you to develop drawings and written specifications that you can use to submit bids that meet your space, clearance, and load requirements.