Good afternoon. Welcome to PCI's production workshop series. Today's workshop is Acceptability of Appearance, Remedial Action, Costs, and Methods. This workshop is sponsored by Architectural Precast Committee. My name is Nicole Clough, Marketing Coordinator at PCI, and I will be your moderator for this session. Before I turn the controls over to your presenters for today, I have a few introductory items to note. All attendee lines are muted. The GoToWebinar toolbox has an area for you to raise your hand. If you raise your hand, you will receive a private chat message from me. If you have a question, please type it into the questions pane. Also, a pop-up survey will appear after the webinar ends. Earlier today, we sent a reminder email to all registered attendees that included a handout of today's presentation. That handout for this webinar can also be found in the handout section of your webinar pane. If you cannot download the handout, please email pcimarketing at marketing at pci.org. Today's presentation will be recorded and uploaded to the PCI eLearning Center. PCI is a registered provider of AIA CES, but today's presentation does not contain content that has been endorsed by AIA. Today's presentation is non-CEU. To start off the presentation, I would like to introduce Randy Wilson, Director of Architectural Precast Systems at PCI. I will now hand the controls over so we can begin our presentation. Thank you, Nicole. Again, this is Randy Wilson, Director of Architectural Precast Services at PCI, and welcome everybody to the Production Management Workshop. This is actually number eight of our Production Management Workshop series. The previous seven workshop series are all on the eLearningCenter at pci.org, so if you want to go back and share those with some of your people at your plants, that would be fantastic. I think we've done a very good job with the Architectural Committee has done a very good job of trying to come up with some subjects that are meaningful to our producers and help grow workforce development internally and also share some knowledge from other other precast producers. So today's topic is Remedial Action Cost and Method. This is a continuation of our Acceptability of an Appearance series. Acceptability of Appearance is a very important topic for all of us architectural precast producers, and our presenters today are Gary Reed, who is VP of Sales of Architectural Precast Innovations in Middleburg, PA, and Mark Fusani, who is the President of Construction Resource Services out of Twinsburg, Ohio and Wyandotte, Michigan. And like I said, this is number eight of our series, the fourth one, or third one of four for the Acceptability of Appearance series. Now next month, we are going to have a couple of architects be on the call, and they are going to talk primarily about how to communicate with an architect. And we are going to get kind of down and dirty. We're going to talk a little bit about, you know, how to work with architects, especially when architects can be a little persnickety. They want what they want, and what they want sometimes isn't necessarily what an architectural precast producer wants to provide. So that's going to be a fantastic, fantastic episode, so hopefully you guys will sign up for that. And I also want to do a quick plug for the Productivity Tour. The Productivity Tour is just a couple weeks away. It's May 9th through 11th in St. Petersburg, Florida is where the hotel is. It's the Tradewinds Hotel right on St. Pete Beach. We do have a lot of activities planned, fun activities for networking for precast producers. But we'll also be touring five precast plants, and we'll also tour Tucker's Machinery Shop, which is a really cool, cool place. So the hotel cutoff is April 22nd, which is tomorrow. So if you're going to attend, I highly recommend that you get registered today or tomorrow and get your hotel, because that is a tourist destination. So those hotel rooms, they'll grab them back and sell them on the open market for a lot higher price. So if you're wanting to come to that tour, today's the day, tomorrow is the day. So be sure and sign up for the Productivity Tour. If you need to learn any more information about that, you can go to pci.org slash the tour. So a little bit about these workshops. These workshops before COVID were live. They were a two to three day workshop. We would actually come in for a day with a classroom, and then a half a day in a precast plant, and we would talk about some of the topics we've been speaking to on these series on the webinars. But now because of COVID, we put them all on webinars, and they've been very well attended up to date. So this is a PCI event, so we will be following the PCI antitrust policy and the code of conduct policy. So what we're going to do, the format is we'll have speakers for about 30-40 minutes, maybe a little bit longer, because these guys are long-winded, and then we'll have time at the end for about 15 minutes worth of Q&A. So as you get questions, send them to me. I'll read them as we go, and I'll throw them out to the speakers as we can as we go through the presentation. But at the end, we'll definitely have some time to ask a few questions. Typically, we don't get to all the questions, so if you want to get your question answered, then get it in early. So we will follow the PCI antitrust policy and the code of conduct policy in all PCI events. And so to get started, this is the same slide you've seen the last couple of times, but it's very important. This is the number one question I get is questions about acceptability of appearance. In fact, I've had two so far this week, regards to whether it be cracking or it's color uniformity. And what we do at PCI is we refer back to our manuals. The specific language in our manuals is what is our black and white. It's our go-to information. So for number one workforce development step is to make sure you have these manuals, and the folks in your plant understand what's in these manuals. They can apply them to the day-to-day activity. So the goal of this series is really to encourage each producer to develop a sampling process that follows PCI's best practices. It establishes realistic expectations with your customers. It also includes a component which is probably the most important is gain written approval for each sample through the sample process. Realizing every project is different, and there's some nuances with relationships, and the type of products, and the color consistency, whether it's brick or terracotta, etc. There are some differences, but having a written policy inside your plant that your folks can follow is the first step, and that policy should align with PCI's manuals. So if you recall, if you were with us last month, we didn't get to one final question, which was, I purposely didn't ask the question because it's a perfect lead-in to this month, which is how do you maintain color consistency on a large wall area is difficult. So how do you set expectations on projects you know are going to be a color consistent struggle? And I know these speakers are going to talk a lot about this throughout this entire program today, but just to hit the high points, number one, communicate your concerns with the customer. It's architects, and you'll find this next month, architects just want the bad news early, and they want to know the facts behind it. They want to know that you're not trying to pull the wool of their eyes. It's truly a concern that you have of something they've selected, and then demonstrate those concerns using PCI manuals, using past projects, and also using your own expertise. It's clearly concern, clearly communicate your concerns to them, and be very, very specific. Secondly is recommend alternative color, texture, liners, etc. There's nothing worse than asking your family, where do you want to go for dinner tonight? And they'll go, we don't know. Okay, give us some suggestions. Do you want American, or do you want Thai, or do you want Chinese? Give us some suggestions, at least give us a path to go on. So once you voice your concerns, then you can make a recommendation. And then at the end of the day, always want to insist on range samples. Range samples is a lot of cost, a lot of time, but they are your saving grace. They are something that you'll be able to refer back to once the project gets going down the road. So, and also involve your personnel at every level. Make sure everybody within your company is on board with that specific project, that specific mix, that specific texture. And at the end of the day, you always want to get the agreement, an agreement in writing and photographs. We all got phones now. Back in the day, no one had a phone. Now we all have them. So make sure you document with videos and photographs. I've used them a lot in my career. It's been kind of the saving grace on many projects for me personally. So with that, today's goals are really these three main bullet points. Implement preventative actions in the plant to reduce jobsite patching, repair, and cleaning costs. That's the old Fram oil filter commercial for us old folks. You know, pay me now or pay me later. I watched those commercials on YouTube today, trying to find one that I could actually embed into this program, but they were just too grainy and too long. But you guys get the idea. Pay me now or pay me later. It's going to cost something at some point down the road. So why leave it to chance? Manage your customer expectations regarding jobsite repair, precast components. We are going to talk about how to do that. And when we do have to have remedial work, when it is required and patching is required on most jobs, how is that best executed? So our first speaker today is Mr. Gary Reed. He's vice president of sales at Architectural Precast Innovations in Middleburg, PA, and he's our current Architectural Precast Concrete chair. So I want to thank Gary for stepping up and being our chair for our committee. He's got 34 years of experience in the precast concrete industry. He's had kind of a world tour in the mid-Atlantic Northeast market from sales and project management. So he's been on both sides of remedial work, you know, how to prevent it up front, but also how to deal with it on the backside. And he was also our regional director at the PCI mid-Atlantic region for several years. So with that, I wanted to start off with introducing Gary. And so tell us, Gary, what about your precast career that's most fulfilling for you? And tell us kind of about these couple of projects. Oh, for me, precast, of course, it's one of those things, you know, once you get into this industry, if you're in it for two weeks, you're in it for life, you know, that's kind of the way it works. For me, you know, the adventure for precast is that every day I come to work, I got something new to work with, something new to do. All the projects, you know, as similar as they look, are individual. And, you know, one of the things I like most about everything in our precast industry is this. We make a product that's so much different than everybody else's. In the fact that every piece we make is built to live in one specific spot on this earth. It's that unique, right? And there's no other ones that are the same. They may look alike, but at the end of the day, you know, inside of each one of them, you know, they're built to live in one place. And not many other people can say that they sell a project to build and it's that unique. And so, you know, it's that unique. And when that product comes out to the field, nine at a time chances, you know, it exceeds the expectations that the customers have and it lasts basically a lifetime. So, it's a wonderful product. The projects on the screen that we have are some that show some of our capabilities, but the uniqueness of them were the one on the left, for example, was a, you know, that they came to us and they said, we'd like to build a building that kind of looks like it hides all of the joints. So, what they ended up doing was working with us with the patterns of the panels. And you can see there's a pattern, but it's really hard to see if you can find them at all, you know, kind of where the real joints are versus the patterns on the building. So, that was the very unique portion about that one. You know, the first six or seven levels are parking, the rest of it is all a school area and it's in downtown Harrisburg. The project on the right is unique in the fact that it actually had a different building facade on at one point. They peeled the entire exterior off of the building down to the concrete frame and then worked as a design team to come up with the new cross section with the brick and the exposed concrete to meet their current needs. So, it was unique in the fact that it actually was a different building at one point and now it looks like the one that you see on the screen. Very cool. Those are very unique projects. That's what I, I'm with you. That was a great answer to the question. I'm with you. I love that you can go back and look at projects you've done 30 years ago and they're still there. They might have a little bit of dirt on them, a little bit runoff, but they're, they look like they were there the same day you put them up. So, our next speaker is Mr. Mark Fusani. He is the president and owner of Construction Resource Services out of Twinsboro, Ohio and Wyandotte, Michigan. He is also a precast lifer, 29 years servicing the precast industry, and he's got quite the world tour also, starting in engineering and working his way into the plant through different plant manufacturing facilities with structural precast, architectural precast, total precast solutions, and now with Construction Resource Services, they do mostly just field work in regards to grouting, structural grouting, patching repair all over the Midwest, Northeast, and stretching down into the Southeast nowadays. So, the construction resources started in 2017 and they currently have 11, 11 crews covering the, covering the Eastern part of the United States world. So, I know Mark, Mark, you've worn a lot of few hats over the years and I know you'll share a lot of tips and tricks a little bit later, but how important is it having a professional site crew for remedial work and what do you all do at Construction Resource Services exactly? Yeah, you know, I've been on the other side. I've been the producer and had the challenges of dealing with the problems on sites from afar. So, from my standpoint, it's really crucial that from, at our company, we really try to alleviate the issues for the precaster, manage the work, manage the customers, manage our crews, etc. so that it's as simple as can be for the, for the producers. You know, we basically do all types of architectural work for this crew. You can see by the slide there, everything from, you know, okay, someone accidentally, you know, missed a soldier course, right? And that could be a pretty big deal, you know, when it's 50 feet up in the air, like it was in this case, and taking out three courses of brick and being able to replace that. Obviously, those are the types of things we can do. And the other one is a, is a column cover repair, which I'm sure this doesn't happen on many of the jobs for the people on this, but this, in this case, got set down, they weren't ready, the erector set down on the ground and, and someone else from another trade decided to drag it out of the way. So you can see all the damage that was done to it. And then it was rejected, but we were able to repair that so that it didn't have to come off of the building. So, you know, able to essentially handle all the issues and challenges that come up and, and helped you to sell your project at the end of the day. This was a fun job that we had the privilege to work on. It's actually Tower of Voices, which is actually at the site where Flight 93 went down in Pennsylvania. And this is a national monument, which made it very interesting. It's a light sandblast gray, which isn't, you know, as exciting as some of our architectural finishes. But what was interesting about this one, all of these little round beams that you see that are kind of a radius and on an incline, all of those are basically a, the face and the top and the bottom are all, all precast, but the interior is not. We actually had to form up and pour all of those to connect all of the columns. So we had to then make sure that the interior finish matched color-wise and was acceptable. And just, again, in general, very unique project that was a fun one to be a part of. Well, and I think this is one of the advantages of having these, these workshops is being able to actually talk to people who are involved in projects that we see, whether they're published in magazines or architect refers to them for a future project and being able to actually pick up the phone and call somebody and say, how did you, how did you do that? And how do we, how do we do that again? So with that, we'll get to our questions. The first question I'll pitch over to Gary, and that is how does the selected mix and finish affect your approach to a project? So it's a very good question. You know, at the very beginning of a project, when we start working with these folks, and they're selecting a mix and a finish, we have to look at the actual cross-section of what the building is going to look like to see how the choices that they're making are going to affect us during the production runs, during our forming, during our handling, and ultimately when it gets erected and put back up on the building. So whenever they start selecting mixes, let's say they want to select an as-cast or a very light finish, and it's a large, large field, right? So we have to start talking to them about not only the challenges of making them, but then what happens if somebody bumps into one, right? What are the, what are the outcomes if we have to touch a mix or a finish like that? Conversely, if we go to the whole way to the other end of it, let's say somebody wants an exposed ag finish, right, where you have to put, paint the forms and have a timed mix. You get it out, you water wash it, ultimately like you don't want hard spots for an example. So, you know, those selected choices that they're making in the beginning, we have to talk through with those people that are actually making those selections. What are the opportunities and what are the pitfalls, and how can we help them through, not only in the design, but actually in some of the detailing of how we want to put these panels together to make it come out with the, let's say, the best outcome. And a lot of times that might be helping them understand how to joint the panels, how to build a return as two pieces or two pours instead of one, all types of items like that. Got it. Yep. So what do you want to add to that, Mark? Yeah, I would add a couple things. I think, you know, Gary touched on quite a bit of it, but for example, I think usually I'm a big proponent of whoever is responsible for creating your mix designs and therefore your samples, that they are the ones specifically involved. So if that's your QC manager that does that, try to have him involved up front with the sales folks to make sure that, as Gary said, whatever you are, you know, providing to your customers that you're sure it's something you can produce at the full scale size consistently. The other thing is most plants I know historically have identified, I'll call problem mixes or challenges they've had in the past. And it's always good to remember your history. There's definitely some that we see get people in trouble. Black acid wash, for example, people try to get that really dark, dark black and acid wash it can create some real challenges. Some of the reds, for example, again, if you want that real deep, rich red, there's little tricks and tips. We used to take a little bit of gray cement, not a little bit, but enough cement, gray cement that it didn't get us in trouble because it was too small of amount, but enough that it really gets the richness of the red. We found when you use the white only with a red pigment, it kind of tends to pink up on you, for example. There's just a lot of those little tips and tricks that, again, really need to rely on the resources internally to make sure that whatever you're providing to a customer from a sales standpoint, you're very comfortable, you can produce it from a production standpoint. So when you talk about those tips and tricks, do you rely on some of your pigment suppliers to kind of help you through that if you've never been down that road before? Yeah, for sure, and there's, you know, and it's even a lot more detailed than that, right? Everyone's going to automated batch plants, you know, especially with liquid pigments and being able to weigh them up at a smaller amount of weight and things like that, and bottles. There's all kinds of people involved, but from your batch plant vendor to your pigment supplier, and again, I'm a big proponent for someone in-house, QC manager, or someone is really your batch plant mix design expert that, from an architectural standpoint, that you're relying on that knows how to get you the consistency and the color and the finish. Gary, you said, you know, talked about, I like this approach. I mean, understanding what the complexity of the shape of the piece is going to be, whether it's a form liner or it's a big bullnose or it's a cornice detail or it's a return, so when you start looking at, you know, aggregate consolidation and returns or aggregate consolidation in a cornice detail, a deep cornice detail, is that a conversation that you typically have with an owner? It actually is, so whenever we're looking at it, when we're looking at the actual detail versus the cross-section, one of the things we have to look at with them early on in the project is, what happens at the inside corners, outside corners, the arches, where pieces meet, and then discuss with them what's the best finish and actual look for how things happen when they come together, when they meet, and it's also sometimes required, or necessary for them to understand, is to maybe even make some sample pieces for them that show them the difference between pouring it, let's say monolithically, versus maybe a two-part pour, to show them how that actual consolidation can happen, so they can physically see, feel, and touch what's happening with what we're telling them is going to happen. I've found that if people get a chance to come to your plant where you can take part of it to them, they can see, feel it, and touch it, it is much easier to have the discussion than to just do it all with theory and maybe even possibly photographs. Yeah, you know, I've always joked to architects, they always want to say, I want to do something new and creative, but then show me where it's been done here for the last 20 years. So you can't have it both ways. So sometimes we just have to build that piece in the plant before we can demonstrate to an architect what the realistic expectations are. So the next question, and we'll start with you here too, Gary, is how do you plan for remedial and the inevitable repair early in the sales cycle? Always joke that all precast problems start with sales. So how can we train our salespeople, again, general stereotypical statement, to plan for the inevitable repairs? So in our world, typically what we'll do is we start that very early in the mock-up phase. As part of our mock-ups, we not only have them sign off on the mock-up for its finition look, but we also have them sign off on a repaired mock-up. So it's important to understand what the actual building features are going to be like, and then make sure that you make the appropriate damages and repairs to those specific mock-ups. Let me give you two examples. One of the standard repairs that we almost always do on every mock-up is what you would consider a spall, right, or a chip where something gets banged into or bumped into. And you want to make sure that you do a big enough piece that you can make a proper repair, have a good procedure, but then while they're standing there reviewing the entire project, for example, for that mock-up, that you have them look for it and see if they can actually find the repair on the mock-up. If they can't, hey, you've hit a home run. And if they do but they have a hard time finding it, again, basically you have a home run. But then the other thing you want to do is look and see, all right, what other opportunities does this specific job have for a possible problem that'll need a repair? So another really good example would be is if you're doing panels that have large windows and they have an opportunity to crack in the corners. So then you wouldn't just want to do one repair on your mock-up, but you would want to create a penetration and then create a real crack and have a crack repair done as well. By doing that, you're actually showing the client, one, that these are the possibilities and things to look for, but two, you've already got it covered and you just need their approval on the fact that what you've done as a repair is the same basic quality level as the actual panel was itself. Yeah, that's very good. That's very good. Kind of create that natural cracking that potentially would occur is something that would be... I've never done that before. That's kind of news to me. That's excellent. What about you, Mark? How would you help in the sales cycle to try to set realistic expectations when it comes to patching and repairs? We like to, first and foremost, let them know that it's concrete and it's going to be some challenges potentially. I've yet to see the perfect job where nothing has had any issues in any way, and so let them know there's going to be some challenges. So to that end, maybe here's... We like to provide standard patch procedures, for example, on a brick job. What's it mean when we have to replace a brick that's cracked and needs to be replaced? So we like to educate them up front. I think what's really important is to set some of the expectations and provide them some education that lets them know, okay, if we do have issues, here's how we plan to solve them. I find that people get a lot more comfortable when they know you have a plan. And so this is really letting them know, we have a plan should we have problems. So I think that's really at the heart of it, letting them know that you're prepared in case things do happen. That's fantastic. I wonder how many people do have a plan, because I know when I sold the precast, I never talked about this until it got to that mock-up phase. And usually it's somebody in our plant that would, like Gary said, would, let's go ahead and damage. Now we've got these approved, let's damage something and then repair it. And then when we did, we want people to come look at that repair, and it's always raining. So that's always been an issue. So can you talk a little bit about, Mark, talk a little bit about weather, how weather relates to repairs? Sure. I mean, obviously it has a direct impact on repairs, the process of performing the repair in particular, and as well as the curing when a repair is done. There's always this challenge, especially in the colder Northeast and Northern parts of the country, where you're patching, say, just before Thanksgiving, and then it's going to start to cure out. And is it going to cure properly? Is it going to color out correctly? There's lots of challenges that come along with cold in particular, as well as the dampness or the rain. So those are the things we definitely have to also be aware of. And just, again, usually rely on the people who are doing the actual remedial work are usually the experts, especially those who have many years of experience performing the patchwork. They can tell you firsthand exactly what the challenges are. So I like to rely on some of those guys, people who work for me or people who work in your plants who have this experience, and ask them their particular stance on some things, or what happens when it's raining? What can we do, or what can we do? It helps to be able to convey all of that to your customer. And I would imagine just that kind of cross-training. Your field crew comes into the plant, working with your yard patchers to just say, you know, this particular mix, this is what we've been challenging. This is the challenging aspect of this mix, and this is how we fixed it in the yard patching. And then they would take that to the field patching. Correct. Correct. All right. So the next question we talk about here is, we'll go with you, Mark, is what is your in-plant quality control process to identify areas in need of repair and to rectify those conditions? So you put your plant manager hat back on. That's right. For me, I think this first bullet point is really crucial, that there is a daily panel inspection. I was always a proponent of representation from whoever's in charge of forms, form building, whoever's in charge of production, batching, QC, and then finishing. Everyone comes together after the product from the previous day has been finished, and it's all reviewed so that you can see what types of issues or problems you're having, and then track those and basically be able to come back and fix them. So if you're looking at a panel and there's a problem from day to day with it that you see a form defect, you need to go back and fix that. But you really need to track these things so that there's some way to make sure you've corrected it. I always said I could understand at most two days of the same problem, because we might not get the product finished quick enough today that we may have already started the work on today's forms or ports and panels already by the time we got finished. So at most, it seemed to me my rule of thumb was two days of the same problem is acceptable. Beyond that, we should have fixed it. So and again, this could be batching, it could be form work, it could be vibrating, it could be a lot of number of different things, and that's why you need to bring all those people together. It's really important, again, that you do flag those affected areas and that you determine the cause and try to correct it. So I'll give you a real world example, right? We're noticing an issue with a mix design, and the color seems to be varying a little bit, and we think it's a batch problem. So we go into our batch plant, and it's a fully automated batch plant, and we start asking questions, and the moisture is going up and down because we've been having rain. And so the question comes in, well, how are we doing our moistures? Well, we got the microwave sensors right in the bins. And everyone says, okay, great, well, those are working well, everything seems to be working right. But we find out it's a mix where we have two different sands, and we have a small amount of one sand. And basically, the amount of sand passing, that small sand passing through those microwave moistures is not giving you an accurate reading. This was a real world example that happened to me. So we basically made the decision, let's bake off that sand every morning, and let's actually put in, override the moisture ourselves. And that made a huge difference in the moisture, the water content going into the mix, which ultimately helped to keep a more consistent color because of the water content. So you really need to chase that all the way back to the root cause and try to solve that root cause. You don't just say, hey, it's a mixing problem, you got to chase it all the way back. And again, hopefully, QC, and my take on quality control, I do not believe you can check or inspect quality into a product. I believe you build quality into a product. So QC, I didn't look at them as like a watchguard or a police, I looked at them as a facilitator, and that they should really be working across all departments to help us improve, help us identify our issues, and help us get to those root causes and to help us keep getting better. So that's kind of how I always looked at using them. You know, yard patchers, they've got to be able to work on all these things, they got to be able to work with QC to understand the mix to begin with, and work through it. And they should be doing that initial patching on the mockup, it gives them their first view of the project or of the mix or of the product that they're going to be working on, and gives them a chance to work out, do that initial workup and figure out how they're going to correct things when they need to. And definitely you need to plan an area for in the plant, or in your yard for repairs. You know, I know most production companies, most pre casters, they spend a lot of time planning their production, form work, time, all the things. You need to spend, you know, the appropriate amount of time also planning your yard, not only where things are going to be stored, but are we going to create a hospital area? Are we going to have an area where we can work on products when we need to, on panels when we need to? If you don't track problems, and you lose track of them, and they go into your yard and get stored, they're going to end up on job sites. And that's not, that's a worst case scenario. First of all, it sends the wrong message to our customers. And secondly, you know, it's an order of magnitude, right? To fix it in the form is a dollar, to fix it in your yard is $10, to fix it on the site is $100, right? So it's, it keeps going up the further along in the process it goes to correct it. The other last thing I would say about quality that I was always a big proponent of, I was a fan of tracking the cost of quality, and you can do that in many different ways. But what I like to do is actually capture the cost of all of the things we had to repair, and then take that as a ratio of the dollars we spent on a project for labor and materials. And that would give you a percentage, and that would allow me to track and see how we were doing. Were we improving on our quality? You know, you can take number of remakes, but that can, you know, and do that as a percentage of the total number of panels you made. But was it a special panel that requires you to rebuild the whole form and, and, you know, re-pour this one panel? Or was it a panel that was very small, and you know, we already had the form sitting there and it took nothing for us to set it back up and re-pour it? Where the actual dollars will give you a real, real-world feel for, you know, how are we doing on our quality? Well, that was, that was excellent. I think I took a page of notes. Hope everybody else did too. How does your process, what you do, the similar, and what are some of the differences that you guys look at, Gary? So in general, the process that he shared is exactly what we use. The only other thing that I would like to share is that there's a couple other tidbits that matter as well, and some of that has to do with time. So you know, we do our daily panel inspections, we do our tracking, we get a hospital area, we get our pieces fixed, and we put them in or out of racks. And you know, so if everything's working really well, all that is a well-oiled machine. And when they go in the rack, they're done, right? And then you get these times where, okay, you get a batch of rain in your plant and all of a sudden your hospital area is overrun, right, and you can't keep everything there. So now you've got to go do some replanting, because you're going to have to put them someplace. You can't just have a hundred trailers sitting around with pieces on waiting to get fixed. So we have that tracking method to try to go back, get them back out of the plant, right? It becomes a planning exercise. And the reason I say time is an issue, because it happens there, and then it also happens one more time. It's not uncommon for us to have all of our repairs done, go through the QC and say, yep, we're all done, right? But there's still another process that has to happen before it goes to the job site. Especially if they've been sitting in your yard for a number of months and they're ready to go. And that's a lot of times in our plants, specifically we do this. You pull them out of the rack and you do a final cleaning or a final inspection of the panels prior to them going on the truck and leaving and going to the job site, because they're supposed to be delivered clean and defect free. What's not uncommon if you brush blast or do those kinds of cleaning exercises, that you can actually create another defect that needs to be repaired. So you have to make sure that you plan the timing for that, so that you don't have all of your trucks ready to roll to the job site, and you have all your patching crews standing on the trucks doing patching. Yes, I've seen that too. And that's a great point. I mean, when you got these products racked and weather's not your friend, it can become a... You can create problems by trying to prevent problems. One other time related item, if I could just interject, it's relative to this question and the one before. It has to do with patches, and I think Mark probably could even share more than I can on this. But as these panels get produced, cleaned up, patched, and put out into your yard, they're done over a period of time. And then if they have to sit there, things tend to age. So the other thing we have to be careful of is when we do a new patch, to make sure that we understand how that patch is going to age with the rest of the panel, so that it matches at the other end. And sometimes that's an education thing for your client, way up in the front of the project to let them understand that, yes, there's a patch, yes, it might be a little different in color. However, when it finishes, let's say hydrating and getting clean, and it's been sitting there for a while, it will then fade into the appropriate color, those types of things. Yeah, and I've had definitely had that before, especially on real tight bull noses that have pointed areas to where you've got something that gets banged, and you patch it three months before it goes to the job site, and you've got another one that has to be patched at the job site, and they look completely different because of conditions. So the next question, I'll go back to you, Mark, is what is your on-site project assessment and repair process once installation has begun? Yeah, so again, I think the project manager here for, again, this is the project manager for the producer, really needs to kind of assess quality and repairs throughout the installation process. And I'm a fan of this starting in the plant, you know, actually walking the yard, maybe visiting the hospital, talking to the QC manager, production manager, whoever the right appropriate people are. Make sure you understand the challenges they might be having, as well as, you know, the repairs and the things that they're doing so that, you know, when you're out on the site, you're continuing to follow that through the process and see, are things curing out properly? Are we seeing damaged items come to the plant unfinished or those types of things? Also I think, you know, more and more these days, it's gotten so much easier with cell phones and things to take more photos. I know of certain companies that have site reps on site, they take pictures of every load as they show up. I mean, you can take it to that extent if you prefer, but it is good to just document and know exactly how things have moved throughout your own process. And I'm a fan of creating your own internal punch list before it gets to an architect and owner and or GC who creates the official punch list, tracking things again as the job is installed and being able to look for things like, you know, spalls and chips and cracks like Gary mentioned earlier. Color and texture can be a little bit more challenging and a little bit more subjective, but it's really, I like to just kind of find these things and make sure that we're aware of them. We know what they are. The more issues you have out there, the more you give your customer reason to kind of look at you a little bit harder. So if at all possible, you know, you start looking at these things, you maybe come in and do a little bit of patching. If it's that right at the main entryway where everyone's looking and putting it under the microscope. Also, it's really, again, important that you track all these repairs. Not only that they're done, that you have the issue, again, I'm a fan of data collection, but only if you're going to use it. In my, again, in my career, I like to capture the cost. I like to kind of assign the responsibility. Was it, you know, damage due to the installer? Was it due to shipping? Was it something in the plant that just made it out to the field? It just really helps you to understand your issues and to try to, again, go back and hopefully fix those issues or prevent them from happening again. The other big thing is really this job site coordination with other trades. There's been a really big shift in the last old 10 to 15 years in architectural precast from my experience and that the general contractors used to really, really do a good job of coordinating the sites and all the trades. And here in the last 10 to 15 years, it's a little bit more of the general contractors are letting the subcontractors all coordinate amongst themselves. And so it's gotten a lot more challenging, a lot more difficult to have the access you need to be, you know, where you need, when you need to be there to not, I just went to a job site this week where we showed up with a precaster, we're supposed to start next week and there's literally a hole in the ground that's, you know, 20 feet deep and 40 feet wide in front of the elevation where we're supposed to start. So it's all these types of things where you need to be able to have better coordination with the other trades and to be able to figure out who's going to be where, when, so that we can work productively and effectively. So let me ask, Gary, how does your company approach that doing an on-site project assessment? So we follow pretty much what Mark said. We have typically got a person on site and the trucks roll in. We basically photo document the pieces on the truck and then after they're installed, it does a couple of things for us. One, we know what it was when it left the plant because we have those things documented. When it shows up on the truck and you can see that there was no damage on the truck, then you're good. When you take that other photo after it's installed and you see that there's no damage, then you're good because it's not uncommon for somewhere down the path, a general contractor to come to you and say, hey, there is something on the outside of your panel and it's your job to go get it cleaned off. If you've documented what you've done and you've kept your areas clean and repaired as you go, when he says that, you go, well, look, I have a photograph. When we installed this, it was fine. Another trade must have done this. For an additional cost, we can probably help you out, right? So there's a lot of reasons why you want to do it. But for us, the real reason we want to do it is we want to keep track of where we're at during the installation process through its completion. So we do what Mark shared. We create our own internal punch list. We try to get those taken care of before we do our walk with the general contractor. That way, he's only seeing the one-offs, the things that we just didn't catch, right? Or things that we didn't know that they were going to be looking at. And then we always have our documentation and our mock-ups to go back to as far as our referencing back what is acceptable versus unacceptable. And then, of course, the other biggie is the job site coordination because it's not uncommon to go there, be all ready to have your repair crew do their job, and you find a hole or you find another crew is working there and they won't work with you. So it's important to be at those job site meetings. It's important to be communicating the entire way through the project with the general contractor and with your repair crew as to what expectations you have, what kind of repairs you're going to have. Have a document. If you're having somebody like Mark's team come in, don't be unprepared. Make sure they know what they're coming to see. Walk the job with them before they get there, right? Do your due diligence to make sure you have a good opportunity to succeed. Definitely, and I also found that most precast jobs, you're the first finished product on the job, and you might only install 10 panels the first day, maybe 12 the second day before the crew really gets rockin' and rollin', and all eyes are on those first few panels. Do you ever have the conversation, Gary, with the contractor to say, now look, give us, wait until we erect 25% of the building or 50% of the building or the first two elevations before we actually have the initial conversation about remedial work, or do you just, do you ever have that conversation up front? Well, actually we do, and sometimes it's not even for remedials, but it might just be for alignment or working around other things that are there on the job site that don't allow you to quite get finished or have yours just the way you want it before they start lookin' at it and complaining or making comments, right, because what happens, there's nothing worse than having the first five panels up, right, and there's an issue on a panel that they think is a big deal. Well, you know what, they're gonna be focused on that for the next 50 panels. So you have to kinda get ahead of it before it's too late, I guess is the way I would promote it. The earlier you can deal with that condition, the better off you are, but more importantly, try not to have it to begin with, because it matters more than most people think. I mean, just as an example, we had a panel that left our yard, and it wasn't even the face, it was the back, but the back of the panel was a different color than the rest of them, and it had to do with a finishing issue. Well, the people on the job site don't know if the backs are gonna be hidden or not, so the only thing they focused on was you had gray, gray, gray, slightly white, gray, gray, gray panels, right? Well, we didn't take care of it in the plant, and it could've been because the way it was racked, they didn't see it next to other panels, but when it got to the job site and it got put in line with the other ones, that one was tinned or colored slightly different than the rest, and it stuck out. So at that point, when you see that, you can't wait for them to come around and tell you, hey, there's a problem here. You need to be in front of it and share with them, hey, this isn't an issue, this is just the following, and this is how we're gonna handle it and move on, and you know what? You'll have a much better success with that than waiting till somebody comes to you. Definitely. I think the one thing I really love about these webinars is creating a level of professionalism across all the precast concrete producers. There is a level of professionalism already written into these documents, and sometimes it seems overkill, but a conversation, as corny as it is, getting ahead of it with a smile on your face, this is not a big deal. We're gonna try to solve every problem. We know there's gonna be issues we're not gonna be able to solve, but we have solutions for them, and be able to get ahead of all that and have the conversation and set your customer at ease. Since sales, we're training the architects to sell to the owner. We're training the construction manager to sell to the owner and to the architect. We're kind of making sure everyone's prepped for worst case scenario, and that we already have a solution for that, which I think is hopefully everybody that's on these calls are seeing that and are implementing that into their plant. This sets precast apart from all the other systems in the marketplace. Got a couple of questions that have come in, so hopefully we'll be able to get to those. So if you have a question, go ahead and send that in to me so we can get that considered. Last question we had here was, what can a precast producer do to reduce remedial work on site? And also, like I said, how do we approach things in a professional manner? We got, of course, the manuals to back it up. What's your approach to that, Gary? So to reduce our work on site, I guess the first thing is do as much of it as you can in the plant to make sure that when the panels go out there, that there really isn't anything to do. The only other thing that we make sure that we do is that you make sure that you're working with your erectors and the other site folks to make sure that they know what you're doing, what areas you need, what your process is, so that they're not getting in your way, they're not having accidents, so that your erector's not borrowing a piece that's got a finish area on it, right? So a pre-erection meeting is worth its weight in gold. And that'll reduce as many remedials in the erection world as almost anything else you can do. And then make sure that everybody understands what the proper procedures are for bringing the trucks in, hooking the panels up. A lot of these panels nowadays have to be rotated in the air, right, before they get put onto the building. So make sure that you have all those procedures down. Go over it with the crew that's actually gonna do the work, because it's not hard for an erection crew to bang up your panels, and they don't even know they're doing it if they haven't done a lot of work on precast before. If you have a PCI-approved erector, it certainly goes a long ways. And for those projects where you don't, you almost need to be the trainer to make sure that they understand how to handle your panels without creating cracks or spalls. Yeah, definitely. So what's some of your advice, Mark? I really think, you know, I know we say project manager education experience on this side, but anyone who's representing your company with your customer really needs to be educated enough, not only on your product, but also about, you know, PCI and what it says, you know, about how far you stand back when you're reviewing a panel and just a lot of those little things that are part of the process so that you can really set the expectations properly. You know, if you send someone to the site and, you know, there's an architect who's trying to get you to take a bunch of brick out because he doesn't like, he wants it all to be perfect, you know, there are standards that tell you how far a brick can be tipped and how far it can be out of square and things like that. And if you don't know that, all of a sudden you're taking out lots of brick that really aren't meant to be taken out. So a lot of the things that come down to, I think, setting the expectations properly and having the right people with the right amount of education in front of your customer. Yeah, and that's the kind of the full circle moment, right? As the manuals do have established expectations and also levels of aesthetic acceptability. Fully understanding what that is, having that book in your hand and being able to review that with your customer gives you a lot of leverage. And that's one of the questions that was brought to our attention here is, and I'm just gonna kind of paraphrase, I think I know where he's going with this. Why don't negotiations for repairs? We talk a lot about, you know, preventing repairs, doing all the stuff up front, mock-ups, doing repairs on mock-ups, creating cracks on mock-ups and solving that, having the discussions, taking photographs, getting ahead of the game. But at the end of it all, there's, you know, five repairs, there's 10 repairs or something on there on the job that you've had to resolve because somebody had to do it. What's your approach? I'll start with you, Gary. Kind of what's your approach when you're looking at final negotiation for repairs that really wasn't your responsibility? How do you approach that? So for us, we fall back to the starting point of our punch list that we've gone through and what our agreed upon scope of work was. So in a lot of cases, that documenting what happened during the course of our work on site pays dividends at this portion of the game in the fact that they may bring you their document that says, well, there's a chip here, there's a spall here. And you find that there are places like entranceway doors or windows. And as you kind of dig into the weeds and the details of it, it's not uncommon to find that another trade might have been using a material handler or a truck or something, and they bumped into a corner and chipped or spalled something. So it's not that I wanna not do the work, but I don't wanna do the work that I'm not getting paid for without getting paid if it's somebody else's responsibility. And then the other part of it, I wanna make sure that they understand is that they probably need to have a professional repair crew do it and not try to let that trade clean it themselves or fix it or repair it themselves to try to save a couple bucks. So here's an example of how that happened to me in the past. I was working on a white acid wash finish, a set of columns that were 30 or 40 feet high. They had a shape like a, we'll call it a unique Y. Probably had 30 or 40 of them in a row. And as work was going on in the site, they had multiple trades, they had concrete contractors, all kinds of contractors, right? Anyway, bad news. We get there one day and all of a sudden we see that there's oil all over the face of these pristine white acid wash finish columns. We'll hear a hydraulic line broke on somebody's crane, which wasn't terrible until they sent some dude out with a power washer to try to clean it off himself so they wouldn't get caught. Well, because we had the documentation up front of what it looked like prior to that happening, one, we were able to convince them or let them understand that this wasn't something that happened to our product. It didn't come that way, it wasn't us. Two, we said, well, we have people that can kind of fix this but because your other trade member went out there and actually changed the surface finish of this, I now have to set a new set of expectations of what I can do to fix this because now it's a different finish than what we ever agreed upon on the project. That sounded like a fun day. So, yeah, these kinds of things just, they pop out of the woodwork and you never know what you're gonna get. Yeah, but kind of real quick, do you come up with a established rate ahead of time or is it just used to have to negotiate it at the end because again, it's all, mobilizing a crew, we all know what that costs and nobody wants to pay that but it's really required, that's the cost. So that's another, we'll call it a touchy subject but I'll tell you what I like to try to do. One, it matters whether you're still onsite or not onsite with your remedial repair finishing crew or not. And then it also is a matter of how do they intend to pay. If they say, oh yeah, we're just gonna tack it onto your project as a change order, all I say is seller beware and here's why. As soon as it's a change order, your opportunity to get paid is different than it was with the original contract. They're also gonna hold retainage on whatever money they give you that they maybe wouldn't if it was done differently, right? But at least you have control over the repair company. Now, you also have liability that you didn't have before because now you have something that's completely out of scope, trying to be repaired back to some undefined scope. So if possible, what I like to do is say, dear Mr. Customer, this was not within my original agreement and it's not part of my normal cleaning and repair company. Here's Mark Fusani's phone number. And honestly, that's what I do and here's why. It creates a separation of my base contract with my original requirements and it allows the project and the people doing the work, which would be somebody like Mark's group, to reestablish the baseline and a new set of requirements of what's acceptable and what's not. Because I'm sure Mark can share, they'll do a test area to show what can or can't be done in one of these unique areas. And that's great, great advice. But we'll have to stop there. If anybody wants to hear Mark's response, you'll have to call him because we are up against time. So you can tell we have fun at the Architectural Precast Committee, especially at the end of the hour. We're probably pretty staunch at the beginning. But I want to thank both Gary and Mark for this. Your all's knowledge is, to me, is amazing. It's off the chart. And hopefully everybody else has got a lot from both of your all's experiences. By all means, what I do hear from people outside the precast world that get into the precast world, they do comment about how collaborative we are with each other up until bid day, which is the way it should be. So if there's any questions you guys have about, or gals have about this webinar, any of the webinar series, you can give Gary a call, me a call, Mark a call. We're pretty much open book as much as possible. And don't forget, we'll be sending out invitations for the next webinar, which will be on May 19th. That's going to have two fabulous architects, got a lot of precast experience, and they're going to just kind of shoot us right between the eyes. I've already had some discussions with them, and I couldn't shut them up. They are very excited about talking with us about their experiences and how to move our industry forward and then if you haven't signed up for the tour for the productivity tour in St. Pete, go to website, pci.org, it's right there on the front page and sign up for the tour. You will tour five precast plants, we'll be able to walk through. We did a walkthrough a couple of weeks ago. There's only a couple of things that are not going to show you, but you'll be able to see forming, you'll be able to see, you know, rebar yards, patching, every step of the process, you'll be able to see and get another perspective of the plant, so it's definitely worth sending a couple of folks down to that. With that, thank you guys and thank you gals, and we'll hopefully talk to you guys next time, so I'll take it back to Nicole. Thank you, Randy. On behalf of PCI, I'd like to thank our presenters for a great presentation. If you have any further questions about today's webinar, please email marketing at pci.org. Thank you again, have a great day and stay safe. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

acceptability of appearance

remedial action

precast concrete

communication

documentation

coordination

mock-ups

inspection process

weather impact

education and training