Sometimes, Thinking Inside the Box Can be a Good Thing material so that they don’t spend their time waiting and searching for it. We keep you up and running. Bridgestone Project Commercial construction projects are starting to pick up again, but life as a contractor still isn’t as rosy as it used to be. Competition is stiff and bids are still tight. Contrac- tors everywhere are looking for an edge. ”How can we be- come more competitive?” ”How can we win more big projects?” The unspoken question behind all of that is: “How can we employ labor saving products and technolo- gies to help us be more profitable?” Material handling takes up approximately 40% of a field worker’s time on the job. It is recognized to be the single most common cause of unproductive time on a job. Shealy Electrical and EDI want to get our customers the right ma- terial, in the right quantities, at the right place, at the right time. Our goal is to keep the installers installing. We use our expertise to facilitate the installation of our customer’s South Carolina Construction News is distributed throughout the Carolinas construction industry from offices at 127 College Avenue, Durham, NC 27713. SCCN is circulated on a controlled circulation list to qualified readers including members of most major construction associations in the Carolinas. For information contact: Bob Kruhm at 919-544-3719 or email rkruhm@nc.rr.com. ISSN 1940-3682. At a current Bridgestone project in South Carolina, we met with Greg Klein – Logistics for electrical contractor Feyen Zylstra (FZ). This is FZ’s first project in the area of the country and Shealy Electrical is honored to offer them job site solutions on such a high profile project. Feyen Zylstra has used Work Cell Boxes on past proj- ects, but not in the Shealy way. On past jobs, the boxes were set up at the beginning of the job with standard prod- ucts. A lot of the material wasn’t used and ended up being wasted inventory. Shealy is different. We work with our customers to set up our Work Cell Boxes with the most ef- ficient layout and with material that is project specific. Any- thing and everything in the Work Cell Box is sure to be used. Gary Breland, Shealy Account Manager in North Au- gusta, works closely with Greg to determine the right prod- ucts for the job. After looking at the job take-offs, they determined that FZ would need 8 Work Cell Boxes for the Bridgestone project. “It is crucial to get the material as close to the work areas as possible,” says Greg. “You want to minimize trips from the working area to the material storage facilities. We could lose up to 2 man hours if one of our installers had to walk from one end of the site to an- other! Now, our guys are working within a 300 ft. radius of where their material is.” Gary set up each box with the minimum and maximum of what the workers would use on a regular basis. “Each Work Cell Box cannot be set up with the entire bill of ma- terial,” says Gary. “It is crucial to correctly estimate the an- ticipated usage and adjust the inventory as the project progresses.” Gary’s expertise in inventory and mainte- nance help make FZ even more efficient when it comes to material handling. Management doesn’t have to worry about making sure they have every fitting, strap, nut, and bolt that they need. Gary keeps the entire inventory organ- ized and limits the clutter that occurs when a variety of hands are on the products each day. As an added benefit, Gary is at the job site on a regular basis, communicating with the foremen – discussing ma- terial usage and needs. This constant communication al- lows Shealy to make adjustments quickly as the project moves forward. On a productivity and financial basis, Greg calculated that the Shealy Work Cell Boxes save them about an hour per day per installer. FZ has 50 installers on the project at a time working 50 hour work weeks. “That saves us one guy’s weekly pay per day!” Greg exclaimed. Our thanks to Shealy Electrical Wholesalers for permission to reprint this article from The Circuit, Spring & Summer 2013. The South Carolina Construction News — July/August 2013 – 11