LONG VIEW
The availability of a high-bay industrial space with crane runway made the recently formed High Concrete Group rethink siting of a new architectural products plant near its Denver, Pa., headquarters. Upon first visit, space that until recently housed an Alcoa aluminum foil line, with 100-ft.-wide bays running up to 1,000 ft. long, was not on the short list.
“Our thinking changed on what was needed operationally, and we started to appreciate how the space would suit raw material storage and handling, fabrication, and finished product transfer,” says High Concrete's Mark Adams, industrial engineer.
“We looked at building an automated carousel system, but then saw that a wide, long bay would allow us to centrally locate form building and handling of reinforcement and insulation board. From there, crews could work left to right on long panel beds and smaller decks,” adds Brett Anderson, plant manager.
The Lebanon, Pa., plant is home to a new entity, High Concrete Innovations, LLC, under High Concrete Group, whose flagship, High Concrete Structures, Inc., is known across the mid-Atlantic for parking structures and until recently, limited architectural offerings. The facility has been developed concurrently with the acquisition of Concrete Technology Inc. (now High Concrete Technology, LLC), a seasoned architectural product specialist with plants in Springboro, Ohio, and Paxton, Ill. Along with a third Pennsylvania plant in Williamsport, High Concrete Group has architectural and structural product capabilities across the Great Lakes and mid-Atlantic states.
BRAND BUILDING
High Concrete Innovations (HCI) is built around production of CarbonCast, a proprietary, carbon fiber precast suited for lightweight panels and related architectural members. It is produced exclusively from self-consolidating mixes and an epoxy-coated carbon fiber product called C-Grid, produced by TechFab, LLC of Anderson, S.C. High Concrete Group is a charter member of CarbonCast licensor AltusGroup, Inc., a Maryland corporation. Lebanon is the second plant built around CarbonCast fabrication, and follows a massive greenfield site Oldcastle Precast dedicated last year outside Baltimore.
HCI's Innovations tag reflects product output at Lebanon; High Concrete's plan to use the operation for research and development; and, deployment of a number of advanced technologies and operating principles in a precast/prestressed operation. Chief among them is a drive toward “lean” manufacturing principles.
“In a precast production setting, lean methods make you look for ways to minimize the number of times forms and product are handled, reduce the waste stream and use space effectively,” notes Mark Adams. As industrial engineer, he joined the company six years ago from True Temper Hardware, a leading garden tool manufacturer based in Camp Hill, Pa. He arrived as High Concrete management began to look outside concrete for key operations candidates.
That mindset also factored into the hiring of Lebanon manager Brett Anderson, who moved to HCI after tours of duty with two eastern Pennsylvania manufacturing mainstays, Armstrong World and CNH Global/New Holland. In a recent visit, Adams and Anderson discussed new ground at Lebanon.
Scope
As a single structure, the HCI plant surely ranks among the largest precast/prestressed operations under roof in North America, with two 100,000-sq.-ft. bays and an additional 25,000 sq. ft. of support space. Production lies in one bay, with the second bay dedicated to finished product staging, drive-through truck loading, and material and supply storage.
Shelter
Every plant function other than cement unloading is performed under roof. Outdoor product storage or handling will be extremely limited, due to indoor accommodations. As the first post-Alcoa tenant, HCI occupies the front quarter of the facility; drive-through provisions eliminate the need for vendors or load carriers to circle the perimeter of a 750,000-sq.-ft. building, and negotiate roadway and parking areas through other tenants' space.
Silica restraint
A fully enclosed blast booth, built with early Lebanon test panels, represents a North American first: architectural precast finished with steel shot media. The ability to collect all shot makes the switch from silica sand economically viable. At a diameter about
Mixing efficiency
HCI marks the inaugural installation of a plant mixer with variable speed control from batch plant supplier, Advanced Concrete Technologies. Using data on projected cement particle dispersion, the device is aimed at optimizing admixture dosages, dosage timing, and power consumption by matching the mixing cycle to mix design and placement rate.
Permit reduction
The switch to steel blast shot has essentially eliminated spent media disposal, allowing 100 percent recovery, while the advanced dust collection measures and self-contained booth under roof have eliminated the need for a separate air-discharge permit. Similarly, the Lebanon plant operates without storm water or process-water disposal permits due to the sheltered production and a water-treatment system adjacent to the batch plant. The system draws batch plant, tool and form wash water from a single settling pit, processing it through two tanks and removing captured solids with finely graded diatomaceous earth. Much water is reclaimed in an 1,800 gallon tank and reused; very limited excess water is of pH and solids purity sufficient for municipal sewer discharge. The earth and captured mix solids are chemically inert, and can be treated as regular solid waste.
Staffing
HCI has a crew of 30, many with limited concrete plant experience, but hopes to have an additional 10 employees trained by early next year. The use of self-consolidating concrete and easily handled carbon fiber C-Grid reinforcement has helped in bringing new employees along. The plant completed Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute certification in June.
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