2019 has been a notable year for Pitt Meadows Plumbing (PMP), and the company has a lot to celebrate. Last month, VRCA attended PMP’s open house event, the goal of which was to welcome industry members and potential future employees to celebrate their anniversary and tour their new facility.
Not only is the second-generation company celebrating 40 years of business in the mechanical contracting sector, but their organizational growth also necessitated a recent move to a much larger location. This past July, PMP moved their operations to a new 58,000 square foot facility, 50,000 square feet of which is dedicated to manufacturing space, located at 20142 113B Avenue in Maple Ridge.
Five years ago, the PMP team had built a new facility in order to fit the needs of their growing team. This larger, more modernized structure included attractive upgrades such as decorative glass and reclaimed wood, but PMP soon outgrew that building as well and needed to add additional shops in both Maple Ridge and Port Kells in order to keep up with their expanding business.
Their new Maple Ridge location, nicknamed “Shop XL”, underwent a number of impressive improvements before PMP moved in, including installing large glass windows in the shop area, which has enabled the entire office administration staff, BIM department, owners, project management, estimating, and shop teams to not only work under the same roof, but also to provide easy, frequent communication between teams, allowing for increased efficiency and continuous innovation.
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The new location also includes a dedicated building for structural steel fabrication and carbon steel pipe welding to prevent cross-contamination of materials and provide a dedicated clean space for non-ferrous fabrication work.
“Separating our shops allows us to provide a higher level of fabrication quality by having dedicated fabrication areas for each of our major value streams,” says Sam Revel, Senior Prefabrication Manager. “This improves efficiency and ensures that we remove the chance of cross-contamination between materials, which is crucial when welding stainless steel pipe for drinking water applications,” he adds.
Prefabrication is a major component of PMP’s business, as over 60% of workhours are completed in the shop prior to site delivery. This ensures the project schedule stays on track by reducing trade stacking and allowing work to be completed out of the typical construction sequence. Their new location allows the team to be leaders in prefabrication techniques and to complete multi-trade racks, mechanical room skids, in-wall assemblies, and pipe spooling with ease. Detailed design development, such as complex P3, design build, and design assist projects are also possible within their new facility.
Their new space provides seamless project management workflows and leverages Lean manufacturing for full quality control procedures. Each assembly undergoes a customized quality assurance/quality control check, allowing traceability of assemblies back to the date and fabrication team that completed the work.
PMP has also invested in state-of-the-art automated smart machinery. The new location features Orbital Welding Robots, Tigerstop Saws, T-Drills (both stainless steel and copper), and will soon welcome a NovARC Welding Robot and automated Watts Cutter to their equipment roster. These tools provide efficiencies and automation of processes, as well as traceability of assemblies through the shop. This allows PMP to complete welding projects faster and more precisely, improving quality and reducing leak paths.
The Pitt Meadows Plumbing team was thrilled that their open house garnered a high turnout of industry insiders and potential new employees as their business continues to grow. The fact that their team has grown by 50% in just two years demonstrates the need for the move to their new facility and the additions of high-tech machinery to their facility. Congratulations again to PMP on this exciting anniversary; we are eager to watch the company continue to grow and improve over the next 40 years and beyond!
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