Travels with Larry Fall of 2016: Vol. 2

 

My travels continued with an invitation to meet in and tour Miron Construction Co.’s corporate headquarters in Neenah, Wis., USA, on October 7. For a moment I, thought I had been beamed up to the USS Enterprise with Spock’s spirit hanging out in the room. 

 

 

 

For those of you who do not know, Miron Construction is, and has been, a family-owned general contractor for 98 years--nearly as long as TAPPI has been an association.

 

 

 

Miron is currently licensed in 15 states and stands ready to be licensed in any state. They go with their clients.

They are very diversified in the industries they serve, from paper, packaging, and food processing, to the healthcare and sports industries. They seem to be able to step up to any challenge.

 

 

 

Their corporate headquarters is LEED Gold certified and their organization has an extreme dedication for sustainability.

Eric Fletty, Scott Springmier, and I were very impressed with these folk from their innovative approach in holding meetings (placemats for note taking with color photos and contact information of the individuals you are meeting with) to the welcome signs in their parking lot. They walk the talk.

 

Miron has a passion for innovation that is apparent in all of the employees we met with. Our hosts included: Pat Nate-VP Industrial Operations, Dan Goymerac-VP Industrial Business Development, Joe Lukasik-Industrial Project Executive, Dan Bayer-Director Virtual Construction, and Tonya Dittman-Pre-Construction Specialist. Even their folks in the field bring innovation and ideas on how to improve upon what they did yesterday. They demonstrated their VPI (Virtual Process Integration). When planning a machine rebuild or working on a greenfield project, their process can limit those dreaded words that happen so often during a project—Change Orders. Miron has data that shows their process has enabled their clients to expedite projects by two weeks. Some projects have actually been COF-Change Order Free.

 

Miron’s Approach is to get everyone in the same room before the start of the project and remove the silos. Many companies offer scanning capabilities, but you have to know what to do with the scan. According to the folks at Miron, it’s important to have the scan integrated into the design model and registered to a known location because all future 3D models are built upon and rely on its accuracy. Creating a full 3D model of the project with all parties in the room makes a huge difference in the on-time success of any project.

 

Miron’s C5 approach: Capture, Create, Construct, Communicate, Confirm, leads to a synchronized file share, managed by Miron that gets all parties on the same page with a single source of truth.

For more information on Miron Construction, contact Pat Nate. I think you will be glad that you did.

 

More information on TAPPI is available online. 

 

Remember, there are two types of people in our industry--TAPPI members and those who should be.

 

Until next time...Larry