ELECTRICAL
Our Electrical Team has experience with High Voltage, Medium Voltage, and Low Voltage.
Our work doesn’t stop after the installation is complete. We also handle all of the commissioning, which includes everything from testing of a motor with a simple start/stop station all the way through the testing of motor control systems that are part of complex control schemes. No matter what it is, whether troubleshooting of existing installations, redesigning and redlining of new installations, or even the writing of test procedures, we can do it, and do it well.
It’s not lost on us that every E&I company that contacts you probably tells you that they too can do all the things we can do, and they probably even tell you they are really good at it, but are they? Did they do their scope of work with little to no rework? Did they perform their scope of work on-schedule and within the budget of the contract? Did they display strong technical knowledge when it came down to troubleshooting?
One theme that seems to be common across all industries, and is a common complaint by most clients, is that the quality of craftsmanship has decreased considerably in recent years. The biggest reason we think this has happened is due to the massive amount of projects in progress across the U.S. right now and the unbelievable amount of personnel it takes to complete those projects. For now, there is more demand than supply when it comes to quality craftsman, and though it may be an opportunity for those wanting to enter a new field, this opportunity comes at the expense of the client.
You can’t fault an inexperienced job seeker for wanting to break into the E&I field, as the wages are generally more than they can make working in any other field, but much too often these individuals lack the quality vocational training and hands-on training needed to be a productive employee. It’s likely these individuals are being thrown into a situation that is not to their liking either. When is the last time someone showed up on a job that was on-budget and on-schedule, and the employee is first given an evaluation to determine their knowledge base, and then given the jobs site installation specs to go over so that they know what the site expects before they start working on anything?
We’re betting if you went around to all of the contractor’s employees working in the field and asked them if they have seen and read the site specs for themselves within the first week of their arrival, you would find that 99% of them would say no, and you know what that means? It means you’re going to be doing a lot of rework, and no matter how honest you may think your contractor is, you can bet they don’t plan on losing money on a job just because they are the reason for their own rework. This starts a chain reaction that leads to fictional FCO’s and finger pointing, that leads to time delays, that leads to cost over runs, that leads to a blemish on your own reputation if you were part of the bidding process that chose this contractor.
Recently we were brought in on a major project to handle the I&C commissioning that had missed nearly every construction and commissioning milestone, and it has a lot to do with what was mentioned above. Within an hour of our arrival onsite, and actually you could say weeks before our arrival, we requested the site specs so that we could have a good handle on them before we started our work. Unfortunately, we asked for this nearly daily and it took almost two months before someone had given them to us. The fortunate part is that our team was not your average team, as most of them were Specialists who had been trained in just about every aspect of construction, commissioning, and maintenance, so they caught most of the installation issues without having seen the site specs.
As we progressed, the amount of issues we found were staggering. Nearly every loop we touched had an issue, whether it was a field installation issue, an engineering or design issue, or a control system configuration issue. It was like nothing we had seen before, as we were used to controlling both the construction and commissioning side of projects where the rework was minimal. As we tried to head off construction and get a handle on correcting the installations as they were going in to prevent re-work, we interfaced with a lot of E&I construction personnel, and we figured this much out; most of the poor craftsmanship was not intentional.
Though some of the people we interfaced with just absolutely did not care, we found that many of the craftsmen did care, and just honestly had no idea what was a good installation and what was a bad installation. No one had ever shown them, and they surely had no idea specs existed. Once we were able to spend some time with the craftsmen doing the installations and explain why something had to be a certain way, we saw a major decrease in rework.
This didn’t just apply to the Electricians. When we first started the project, we were sharing work scope with another I&C Commissioning company that had numerous deficiencies in not just how they were loop checking, but also in their documentation, so we got everyone in a room and had a talk. We explained the importance of a full functional check, as well a detailed review of all documentation, to ensure that what was designed and installed was really what was supposed to be there. As it turned out, there were many, many design and engineering issues on this project and though many people were not quite technically savvy enough to recognize an engineering and design issue, the review with everyone of how a checkout should be done and a punch list created, proved fruitful. Many more issues were being recognized by the technicians as we showed them what to look for, and this again, cut down on the rework.
So, we are very familiar with the current state of the pool of craftsmen, and as we said, it’s not really the craftsman’s fault. It’s really on the company to ensure that they hire competent employees, and for the company to be honest while sitting at the table with you and just say they can’t find enough competent employees for your project instead of making promises they can’t keep.
We are the type of company that will tell you if your expectations are realistic or not. We are also the type of company who takes our reputation personal, so you can expect us to do everything we can to evaluate the situation, and come up with a course of action to remedy the issues. We want to be the company that you let’s you sleep a little better at night knowing we are on your project (This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA, and we make no claims that use of our company can be used as a cure for insomnia, but we think we can take a little bit of stress out of your life!).