C0RNERS1DNE WELLS CONCRETE PRDDUGTS CLDSES THE DECADE WITH DNE OF THE INDUSTRY'S MOST IMPRESSIVE PLANTS DF THE CENTURY - Rexcon
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C0RNERS1DNE
In a mid-sized, upper-Midwest
market where competitor' plant
and storage properties cover about
300 acres. Wells Concrete Products
has upped the ante in architectural
and strucbjral precasVprestressed.
The Albany plant enclosures are
built with 36-fL double tee wall
panels and 73-ft double tee roof
WELLS CONCRETE PRDDUGTS CLDSES members, all febricated on site
using a form now in the structural
THE DECADE WITH DNE OF THE INDUSTRY'S bay. Acting as fts own general
contractor. Wells Concrete used
MOST IMPRESSIVE PLANTS DF THE CENTURY
a RexCon portable batch plant
BY DON MARSH to supply material for the main
production and finishing building
slabs and their double tee wall and
roof members. Witb about 14,000
A
fast-track construction schedule that and finishing buildings, the facility has concrete as
yd. produced so far, the plant will
escalated in between last year's Bear Stea- essentially its only load-bearing material. Except- be redeployed in south central
rns and Lehman Bros, headlines netted a ing doors, windows and skylights, architectural Minnesota, wbere Wells Concrete
concrete operation that would be bold in any precast or double tee members are the sole source has five ready mixed operations.
economy or region. When asked about a 2008-09 of enclosure. Structural steel is sparse, limited to
construction schedule for the Albany, Minn., 15- and 20-ton overhead cranes, and rails bearing
plant versus a revised plan a year or two from shuttle-style aggregate and wet mix hoppers that Wells Concrete's management
now. Wells Concrete President & CEO John Rivisto are central to a production plan founded on speed team assembled at the Albany site
says without hesitation, "This is a response to and versatility. prior to commencement of their
strategic planning to create needed additional The Albany plant sits on 80 acres overlooking ambitious plan (from left): Albany
capacity. Although we have increased manufac- Plant Manager Paul Nelson; Grand
Interstate 94. It combines inordinate aggregate
turing output at our Wells [Minn, headquarters] Forks Production Manager 3im
and cement storage and handling, casting bed, and
plant through additional casting capacity, per- Horge; Albany Production Manager
surface treatment capacity with material weighing,
sonnel and process improvement, we realized the Tom Holmes; V.P. of Operations
transfer and quality control methods proven in con- Jeff Stumpf; General Manager
rural tabor pool would not likely support an addi- crete environments other than precast/prestressed. Gregg Jacobson; and. President &
tional 150-200 employees and that a lot of orders As one of the first greenfield operations of its kind CEO John Rivisto.
were being shipped toward St. Cloud and the 1-94
corridor anyway. We were unable to handle a lot
of work prior to the economic downturn."
The new workhorse plant has Wells Concrete-
fresh off a 50th anniversary celebration in 2007
and continuing under founding-family owner-
ship—prepared for decades of foreseeable changes
in equipment automation, capacity needs, product
development and environmental regulation. Early
on, it is a showcase of its owner's engineering,
fabrication and surface finishing capabilities; con-
fidence in the future; and, dogged commitment
to building with nearly 100 percent precast/pre-
stressed. With 183,000 sq. ft. in main production
WWW.CDNCRETEPRDDUCTS.CDM SEPTEMBER 2aa9 • 13
Lean manufacturing methods Wells Concrete has
adopted at its flagship and Grand Forks plants
carry to Albany, as evidenced in tool organization,
plus a carpentry shop in ramp-up mode. The
expansive carpentry and steel shops flank the
employee break and locker rooms and parallel the
architectural bay.
oriented around lean manufacturing principles, Had the plant been developed at a business
Hamilton Form customized peak, he figures, certain construction and equip-
Wells Concrete/Albany is a case study in one-way
the architectural beds with
material and product flow, tool and equipment ment expenditures might have run up to 50 per-
hydraulically operated side rails;
organization, and tidiness. cent more than what the company incurred in the
as steps, they facilitate faster
and safer form preparation The site is located almost dead center of Min- 13-month Albany window, from groundbreaking
by allowing crews to navigate nesota, a little over an hour northwest of the Twin to ñrst product fabrication. Slow construction
without jumping from tables Cities along a growing 1-94 corridor. It also has conditions in Minnesota, and an industry-wide
or taking unnaturally steep ready access to the North Metro markets expand- slump in plant equipment sales, translated to a) an
steps up. The tables are ing from Minneapolis and St. Paul toward key lake abundance of quality labor to handle much of the
covered with 2x6 wood panels, construction outside Wells Concrete's own erection
and resort areas. Albany is about midway between
finished with Fister Armorgard crews; and, b) timely response from batch plant
Wells Concrete's architectural productflagshipin
505 epoxy form coating. The
south central Minnesota, and a Grand Forks, N.D., and production component suppliers.
structural bay at Albany begins
with a Hamilton 12- x 460-ft. structural plant that prior to a uniform branding
double tee bed. A Kraft Energy effort operated as Concrete Inc. EXPONENnAL VERSATILITY
accelerated cunng system "By building a bigger, more centrally located With investment to date well north of the $17 mil-
distributes vapor through greenfield plant, we have freed capacity in Wells lion company officials publicly indicated in project
stainless steel pipe located in planning, the Albany operation is almost certainly
to bid projects in northern Iowa and southeastern
trenches under the bed.
Minnesota markets where we hadn't been active," the largest outlay in North American concrete pro-
says Wells Concrete General Manager Gregg Jacob- duction this year, and one of the most ambitious so
Albany's inaugural contract entails son. "Our strategic review of the market proved far this century.
deep-stem double tees for a there was a need for the added capacity and we had Wells Concrete management credits city and
wastewater treatment plant in a strong backlog going into the Albany project." county officials with expediting permits and tax
Minnesota. Clean Water Act-driven matters that made Albany a front-runner site.
"We knew we would be in a good position
projects are offsetting some of
when the market rebounds," adds Vice President The officials were wise to a company with poten-
the state's drop in commercial
and Albany Plant Manager Paul Nelson, P.E. "The tial payroll of 150-200. At that level, Albany would
building work. Eariy on, Wells
long-term precast/prestressed capacity needs did have a second major employer alongside Kraft
Concrete has twin 50-ton Travelifts
for yard duty. not go away with the economic downturn." Foods, whose packaged macarorü plant is built with
14 • SEPTEMBER 2009 WWW.CnNCRETEPRDDUCTS.CDM
During the new plant and office construction. Wells Concrete President John Rivisto and CFO
Dan Juntunen determined that Albany would become their home base—a central location
between the Wells, Minn., headquarters and Grand Forks, N.D., plants. The producer also
arranged to transition some engineering and drafting functions to the new property. In
addition to its exterior panels, the office features other architectural precast elements,
including furnishings, delivered from the Wells flagship plant.
double tee wall panels Wells Concrete deliv- ñoor packages and minimize service and
ered from its headquarters plant. engineering complications that aiose when
The new plant is up and running with 50 it was procuring hollow core from other sup-
employees, four from the Wells architectural pliers as part of bigger contracts. Albany
plant, one from Grand Forks, and the others becomes the sole upper Midwest source of 8-
local and mostly new to precast/prestiessed ft. Spancrete plank and wall panel offerings.
fabrication. The newcomers can leam the trade The main production bays are served with
in an open, climate-controlled space divided a batch plant whose storage capacity—18
into three 75- x 570-ft. bays: architectural, aggregate bins and twin 480-ton quadrated
with three 12- or 14-ft. x 14.0-ft. tables; struc- cement silos—is equal to multiple days of
tural, with one 12- x 460-ft. double tee hed, production without a tanker or dump truck
plus space for permanent or temporary beds delivery. The batch plant is equipped with
or forms as contracts wanant; and, Spancrete, two moving aggregate hoppers feeding a 3-
with three 8- x 500-ft. beds. A massive finish- yd. planetary mixer (architectural products)
ing building has two sandblasting and three or 5-yd. twin shaft mixer (structural), both
washing booths, each about 1,600 sq. ft. supplied by Sicoma North America. They
The Spancrete tine enables Wells Con- charge three wet hoppers positioned for the
crete to provide a variety of full wall and current mix delivery plan of front discharge
trucks (architectural and structural bays)
and forklift-mounted buckets (Spancrete).
In addition to sandblasting and washing Albany Production Manager Tom Holmes,
booths (one of three shown here, upper who relocated from the Wells flagship plant,
right), the finishing building has a water sums up a material storage and handling
reclaiming and treatment system. A settling
plan that supports a fabrication effort deep
pit and filter press yield water suited to
washout of plant mixers and mix delivery and wide: "Our objective here is to be able
vehicles and hoppers. The pit receives to weigh any aggregate for either mixer any
washout and other process water from a time."
collection tank sandwiched between the
Spancrete bay and batch plant.
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