The Challenge
A large semiconductor manufacturing facility in California, built in the mid-80s, recently changed ownership in an acquisition. The new owner purchased the facility with the goal of upgrading it to a new industry-specific fabrication facility to enable state-of-the-art manufacturing. The project required major selective demolition of the fabrication floor, sub-fab, clean room, energy center, return air plenum (RAP), outdated equipment, tooling, and all the support systems that go along with it (electrical, mechanical, structural, etc.). It also required removal of contaminated materials and hazardous waste (i.e., contaminated chemical lines and piping). The renovation of the manufacturing facility was a design-build project. At the time of the award, much of the project was still in the planning and design phase with many decisions and parameters yet to be finalized.
The scope of the design-build project blossomed quickly as new projects (i.e., the addition of electrical work and the clean room, to name a few), challenges, and unforeseen roadblocks were encountered. A corresponding increase in the timeline was not permitted. This required immediate scaling of personnel and a fast ramp of job and safety training to ensure time commitments were met. In addition, due to some of the hard-to-access confined spaces and specific chemical compounds, the team also needed to invest in new tools to complete the job safely and efficiently.
A contractor was needed with the expertise and experience to handle both the demolition and remediation requirements simultaneously. Projects like this are prone to newly discovered contaminated material being found as the project unfolds, causing delays as the hazardous materials are tested and evaluated. This can prevent subcontractors from meeting the strict timelines. And the project timeline was only four months. Leadership knew that frequent collaboration and communication with the various project stakeholders (head of facilities, industrial & environmental manager, internal construction group, etc.) would be critical.
The Solution
Precizion immediately trained and launched their demolition and remediation teams, instituting multiple project managers to coordinate the efforts and be critical points of contact. They leveraged in-house experts to guide the remediation team in the safe identification, tag-off, cutting, and removal of contaminated materials (i.e., piping), as well as the containment or decontamination of the material before enlisting specialty haulers for disposal. Continuous testing was conducted to identify, educate, and remediate dangerous materials, including various heavy metals, acids, caustics, and solvents.
The demolition team often worked alongside or close behind our remediation team to do much of the heavy lifting, which helped the project run efficiently and on-schedule. The demolition team conducted substantial selective demo of three floors of piping and materials from the fab, RAP, energy center, and sub-fab (where the mechanical and electrical systems that support the cleanroom are located). Precizion and the client instituted weekly and bi-weekly meetings to ensure knowledge was shared, creative and efficient workarounds were developed, and additional research was conducted.
People resources were the wildcard that Precizion Partners™ needed to solve. As the scope of the project quickly expanded, so did the need for workers to complete the extensive tasks. The company ramped up through weekly hiring sessions and set up daily training sessions for onsite personnel to accommodate the scope and timeline.
Precizion Partners’ experience in the industrial demolition and remediation space enabled us to handle some of the unique situations, and in some instances, pivot quickly to bring experts on board to help solve the problems. For example, known contamination levels changed as additional surveys came in. Precizion Partners hired a Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) to provide guidance and training on specific hazardous materials while also certifying the safety documentation.
The synergies between Precizion’s demo and abatement teams were critical for the tight sequencing of jobs, and it enabled consistent sharing of information during the weekly and impromptu meetings with the customer. The partnership eliminated many of the challenges that big construction projects encounter by providing a one-stop shop for all demolition and remediation needs.
