Some electrical contractors find using new factory assembled pre-fab rough-in products have reduced man-hours by up to 30% on the rough-in portion of commercial projects.
In today’s commercial construction market, several powerful forces have combined to pressure electrical contractors to complete every phase of a project – including rough-in -- faster and with reduced labor costs.
In order to handle more projects with their current size labor force, and to boost their margins, many contractors are increasingly turning to the use of pre-fabricated electrical products, especially on commercial projects like schools, office buildings, hotels, and retail chains, as well as large Multi-Dwelling Unit residential projects such as condos, apartment buildings and retirement communities. One such contracting firm is Sprig Electric, the fourth largest electrical contractor in California.
San Jose, California-based Sprig Electric has 350 IBEW electricians and technicians and expects to generate $115 million to $120 million in 2007 revenue. Of that figure, at least 60% represents commercial projects, including Multi-Dwelling Unit construction.
“About three years ago, the residential MDU market drove us more into pre-fab because of the sheer number of units that came to market,” said Darrell Clingerman, leader for the pre-fab department for Sprig Electric. “Pre-fab products are now used in approximately 85% of our commercial projects, and my pre-fab department has up to 12 electricians solely dedicated to preparing pre-fab construction solutions.”
“When we began doing hi-density residential MDU work our pre-fabing accelerated by 60% to 70% above the earlier period,” added Clingerman.
“We started using Cooper B-Line’s Ruff-In™ products early in 2007 and we did some feasibility studies and found out that the Cooper B-Line product line provided even further installation time savings than our previous rough-in methods,” said Clingerman.
“By using Cooper B-Line pre-fab solutions we saved an additional 10% to 20% of the rough-in portion on a typical project,” explained Rick Clinton, vice president marketing for Sprig Electric. “Applying Cooper B-Line’s Ruff-In™ products in our in-house rough-in shop allows the journeyman to do a project in the field without spending time checking every detail.”
“We can offer the value of the cost savings back to our customers,” said Clinton. “We’ve built in this saved time into our estimating process. With pre-fab construction in our shop using Ruff-In™ products, we find there are far fewer problems at the job site. It increases accuracy, provides a more consistent job, tightens schedules, reduces the number of people needed per project, and shortens project turnaround.”
Another electrical contractor that has benefited from using the Ruff-In™ products is Kaiser Electric, a $32 million firm with 150 electricians and twelve project managers located in Fenton, Missouri.
Kaiser Electric tends to single source projects with an electrical distributor, but when they had difficulty getting all of the Cooper brand products they wanted from one distributor, they started talking with Cooper marketing representatives about alternatives.
“We already had used Cooper B-Line products including cable tray, strut, and fasteners, so we used these pre-fab products from Cooper B-Line even before they were available as a standard product,” admitted Tony Rose, director of purchasing for Kaiser Electric. “The first Ruff-In™ order with pre-wired devices actually came out of our conversations about The Cooper Connection. If I had to pick out one major partner among the companies we buy from, I’d have to say Cooper is one of our most important manufacturing partners. They’ve bent over backward to solve our biggest problems.”
“I try to take purchasing to the next level by sticking with companies that give us products that help cut down our project labor time; that’s where we benefit big-time,” said Rose. “About 50% to 60% of the projects Kaiser does each year are commercial, and on these projects I believe we save as much as five minutes per assembled electrical box by using Cooper B-Lines’ Ruff-In™ line. It’s perfect for new construction.”
“Our cost is $1 per minute per electrician on the job which really adds up when you’re doing box assembly and wiring devices trimout,” pointed out Rose. “By turning to factory-assembled pre-fab units that come as boxes already attached to support hardware, suddenly you are ahead on the project, and that provides a better value to our customers.”
“I recall our first job using Ruff-In™ products,” recalled Rose. “I checked with the foreman and he reported that the project was “a week up”, or a week ahead of schedule, so we could send two electricians on to complete other projects. The trimout also went a lot faster because we had ordered the devices already on the boxes which saved an additional three to five minutes per box.”
When asked if there’s a downside to using pre-fab solutions, Rose pointed to the need to change worker’s habits to accept the pre-fab approach. “Our biggest problem is convincing the older electricians to change the way they’re doing things. Some tradesmen feel threatened by losing the fabrication work, when in reality, by using pre-fab products we are able to secure more projects by being more competitive,” said Rose.
Contractors can actually see for themselves the savings they can expect on a particular project by using the online Ruff-In™ Pre-Fab Labor Savings Calculator (www.cooperbline.com/Ruff-In/index.asp). This calculator can help a contractor determine how much time they can save doing rough in on their next project by using pre-fab products.
In addition to the financial pressures coming from the building construction team, there is also the fact that in many regional markets there is a real and growing shortage of skilled, experienced contractors. With the average age of electrical contractors now hitting 50 years of age, the contracting industry is facing a critical need for increased installation speed using labor-saving solutions in order to help workers handle project loads.
The market is already responding favorably to the Ruff-In™ line, and we expect it will continue to respond favorably.
