Said Differently - A Barton Malow Podcast
Said Differently is Barton Malow's conversation with the construction industry. Each episode features candid conversations with leaders, tradespeople, and partners who are shaping how Barton Malow designs, builds, and delivers. Said Differently is a go-to resource for anyone who wants to understand where construction is headed and how Barton Malow is helping get it there.
Said Differently - A Barton Malow Podcast
Concrete Heroes: The Inside Story of the 'MegaSlab'
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Consisting of 6,470 cubic yards across 256,100 SF over 32.5 consecutive hours, the “MegaSlab” placement at General Motor’s Arlington, Texas, plant in 2019 as part of the M5 Productivity Improvement Program still stands as the largest continuous steel fiber pour ever done.
In the latest episode of Said Differently, we’re joined by Barton Malow team members Ethan Uhl, Brian Willard, and Tom Binkowski, all of whom played a major role in the planning and execution of the MegaSlab. Our guest panel dishes on the inside story behind the placement, why it almost didn’t happen, and the eventual triumph that came from successfully completing it.
Barton Mallow has been working with General Motors since the 1950s. The relationship began with various maintenance and miscellaneous work on plants in the Detroit area, where GM was founded and is still headquartered and has expanded to include projects of various sizes and scope since.
SPEAKER_03One of the biggest programs Barton Mallow and GM have worked on is the Automakers M5 Productivity Improvement Plan, which consisted of design build work across eight of its North American locations in a two-year span. Utilizing goats to clear vegetation on a steep hillside to save on manpower and ensure safety. We've done that.
SPEAKER_04Watching a world-renowned architect crumble up a piece of paper and tell you that's how they want their building to be designed, we've been there too.
SPEAKER_03Ever envision a brick-laying robot or material lift unit assisting laborers with building? It's happening now on our job sites.
SPEAKER_04Every project has a great story, and our team members have more than a few to tell throughout Bart and Mallow's 100 years of business that don't fit the usual industry coverage. I'm Rob Riley.
SPEAKER_03And I'm Eric Fish. We're both Bart Mallow team members and the hosts of this podcast. We're going to be bringing you the untold stories from the job site. It's construction, but it's said differently.
SPEAKER_04This episode of Said Differently will focus on one of those locations, Arlington, Texas, and on a specific concrete placement that was done there in the winter of 2018.
SPEAKER_03Known as the Mega Slab and consisting of 6,470 cubic yards across 256,100 square feet, it stands as the largest continuous steel fiber pour done to date. It's also a part of Barton Mallow lore, but not just for its size and scope, but because of how it kept the greater project on track.
SPEAKER_04And as you'll learn from listening, there were also a lot of challenges that our self-performed concrete team had to overcome to ensure a successful outcome.
SPEAKER_03We're pleased to be joined in studio by Ethan Yule, Tom Benkowski, and Brian Willard, all of whom were instrumental in the planning and execution of the Megaslab.
SPEAKER_00Ethan Yule, General Superintendent for Concrete, uh been with BartMetal 16 years.
SPEAKER_01Tom Binkowski, senior director with concrete in uh 39 years.
SPEAKER_02Brian Willard with uh senior VDC manager with VDC building trades been with Bart Mellow 12 years.
SPEAKER_04Let's talk about what the difference between cement and concrete is.
SPEAKER_01Cement is the powder product to make the paste in concrete. So without all the other ingredients, it's just cement. So we're we're a concrete company.
SPEAKER_04Before we get into this, can you just describe what does slumping mean?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it's it's basically just the viscosity of the concrete itself. When they do like a concrete like slump test, it's like in a cone and you and you pull the cone up at like a certain pace, and then they measure it, and that how how far it slumps down and from the top that gives you your your range of slump.
SPEAKER_02So what I was taught when I was 12 is like pancakes, right? You want a good pancake mix, so when it hits the when it hits the pan, it it spreads out and you get a nice, nice looking pancake, right? If you got a stiff, you got a stiff mix, you get like this big pile, and it don't look like it looks like a biscuit or something, not a pancake. So that's that's like the analogy I was taught on.
SPEAKER_04Let's talk about the Mega Slab project and and the involvement in it. How did this idea come to be? Let's maybe go there.
SPEAKER_02Uh we were down in Arlington, Texas, putting the body shop edition on the uh GM plant, and we were, I don't know, halfway through the slabs. We're getting towards the end. My my role at at that project, I was the superintendent over the concrete team. Ethan was at that time, you were still in charge of just placing finishing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was just like general form and placing finish. Yeah, so I Brian called me early. It was like early September, and uh, in August, September sometime, I think, is when I got the call, you know, asking if we could accomplish this. And and like I said, I think the phone got quiet for a minute, and and I think I, you know, said something along the lines of like, well, yeah, I mean anything's possible. You know, we could we can achieve anything, you know, if we put our minds to it, um, but probably not ideal, you know. So let's let's you know get some more information and kind of further the conversation. So I think over the next couple weeks, Brian did that, got got a bunch more information, worked with the project team, kind of started narrowing down like a timeline of when, you know, when the possibility would be to try to accomplish this size of a pour and kind of started from there. So I think you know, over the course of September just was more of a information gathering thing. And then sometime like mid-October is when we really started planning, bringing in some some trade partners and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_04Did we have time to do any type of planning ahead of time? I mean, I know we can do as much like crunching on a computer and stuff as we can, but like in real life, like what was there anything that we we could do to ensure success?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, we did we did a lot of things, honestly. I mean, there was a lot of planning again. I think there's when when we were all said and done, I mean, there was about three months of planning that kind of went into this. But, you know, from the month of September, just gathering information with exactly where the project was gonna be at, with how big this pour was gonna be. It turns out it was, you know, around 256,000 square foot is what we ended up doing. So once we got all the information and kind of figured out where we were gonna be at, where the project was gonna be at, you know, then we were able to kind of start planning from there. So, I mean, we even used was it a 4D model to kind of help show us we went through everything and just timed the laser screed. We timed, you know, each pouring each truck and and put that all in a model and played that out to see how much time it was gonna take. And that's kind of where we got some of our estimates, you know, estimated times, you know, to complete and do some of this. So we utilized technology and utilized just our our knowledge of of our everyday means and methods to to kind of come up with a game plan on how we're gonna do it.
SPEAKER_04Can you talk a little bit about yeah, vendors and suppliers and trying to just coordinate all that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so you know, going through, you know, General Motors was a part of the process. Also, Bart Mall leadership, you know, again, had to weigh in on this heavy and you know what it's gonna do to us as a company. I mean, there's always the thought of you got to take it into consideration, failure, right? I mean, these guys planned it to the T, but a big thing was partnering because otherwise, you know, the resources, our fear was the resources that we would pull to pull this off from Michigan would have hampered a lot of other programs. So that's where the partnering came in with UCS and Lloyd Concrete to be able to kind of keep our normal workload going, plan for this, prep for it, and make this placement.
SPEAKER_00It looks like we were at roughly 134 people, is what it took to pull this off. As far as equipment, you know, BartMail owns a lot of a lot of our own equipment. But I think when something happens like this in the concrete industry, I mean, all of our vendors, whether it was Allen Engineering, uh Whitman, Multiquip, Someril with with screeds and stuff like that. Um, it was like I said, it was kind of just open arms, like, hey, how can we help? What can we do? You know, we'd love to get equipment there. I mean, everyone was looking forward to it. Look, I mean, hindsight, we had way more than enough equipment. I mean, we had almost too much equipment. It was just trying to keep it all staged and whatever. But I guess when you're doing something like this, and and you know, as Tom mentioned, you know, just the uh, you know, possibility of failure is you just never want to have not enough. So it's like I'd rather have too much than not enough. So that was great. I mean, it was definitely you know a really good feeling to have just you know an outpour of just you know generosity and and you know um support from from all of our vendors and and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01I specifically remember, I think it was either the night before the day before the poor or night before the poor when when I walked in there, it literally looked like an equipment rental house. That's how much equipment was there, you know. It's kind of amazing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because we started taking equipment in the whole week before, so we were staging it out. Something hadn't been done like that, and everybody just wanted to be part of something cool. There were five batch suppliers that you guys were working with, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So one one ready mix supplier, but they had five batch plans. One of them was intended for a backup. Um, but I believe we ended up using it right away just from some the cold weather that hit the morning or really that week prior leading up to this this job or this uh this slab pour you know, had a couple batch plants freeze up and and and break down first thing in the morning, and then uh I think they fired up their their backup right away, and then I think they ended up keeping it on the whole time, you know, so just supplementing some trucks out of there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they definitely ran out all five batch plants the whole time. It was like you said, it was a super rough start, but we started hitting the stride probably right around the eighth hour, ninth hour. We started gaining momentum and got back to the yieldage we wanted per hour.
SPEAKER_03When you're dealing with that many batch plants, is there a concern about consistency um and differences with the with the concrete? And how was that remediated?
SPEAKER_02We color coded all of them similar similar to the way we color coded ourselves, because we had four teams, we had a we had a blue and silver team, we had a red and orange team, so we knew where everybody was at when we made the transition. But same thing with the batch plants, each each plant had a color code. So when they come in on their mirrors, there was a color associated with which plant they were coming out of, and we kept them to the same location each time, and that's why we loaded the fibers on site, so we didn't have to deal with them getting so different on their end, we were controlling the slump and and the fibers on the site.
SPEAKER_04So you hinted at it uh with the batch plants like freezing up, you know. So you're in Arlington, Texas, you know, getting cold is not really something that happens down there often. So you just had uh an unseasonable storm come through or unjust unseasonable temperature dip, right? And so, how did how did you guys account for that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so when the weather turned, I mean, me and Ethan were down there uh two weeks before the placement, and we seen the weather turning, and then we started planning like because that was not part of the plan. We we had a whole execution plan and backup plans, but weather was not one of them. We had a plan to exhaust to uh to burp the building to get the co out, but we didn't plan for weather, so we ended up getting heaters, which was super expensive truck down there, and then we you know took some precautions to get some salt to you know to salt the roads in case we started getting ice, and then we just prayed, you know, yeah, prayed that we get we got the building warm enough, we get the trucks in there, concrete would set up the right way, and we just controlled the heat the whole time during the placement, and then seven days after the placement.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, so like Brian mentioned, we were down there two weeks before, saw it come in when we were back down there leading up to you know a couple days prior. Brian and I went to a couple of batch plants and it it was cold, and it was probably early morning. I think it was like mid-morning, like 10 o'clock or something. We were at a couple of them, they were freezing up, and I think Brian and I were all getting a little nervous. But you know, I will say the one thing I think we had playing in our favor is we started our pour at nine o'clock at night. So our hope was that you're still kind of coming off a little bit of the heat of the day, and you're really you're not hitting your coldest time of the night until like that 12, one o'clock mark. So at that point, we're already rolling. So once we get going, like the biggest thing was like just getting going. Once you get going, we should be fine. And that that proved true. You know, once we got going, we were okay, but it was definitely um a little bit nerve-wracking leading up to it with with the colder temperatures, just because you know, down there, like they're not set up for it like they are up here, you know. So it's like you know, you get down to below freezing or at freezing, you know, a lot of times they shut down. So we're in Michigan, you're you're usually 15 degrees is when they'll start shutting down up here.
SPEAKER_01So Brian, part of the planning too, didn't we do this on a holiday weekend? Yes, for traffic patterns and everything.
SPEAKER_02So it was it was planned for a shutdown. The the plane only shuts down on holidays. It's that plant runs 24 hours, and our access point to where we where we where we had the access for the placement is in a very congested area. So the whole plan was to do it when the plant was shut down. So we did a Martin Luther King weekend.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that was also helped. I mean, that helped with Ready Mix. I mean, that was kind of the way they agreed to because you know they had to shut down every other job that they were supplying to. Same thing with everything, everything, you know, it just it worked into our favor just trying to do it over a holiday weekend. We started Friday night, you know, poured all all day Saturday and finished up, you know, Saturday afternoon sometime, and then finished into into Sunday. But yeah, just having that long weekend was was good to get you know everyone's support and just a hundred percent focus on that on that project.
SPEAKER_04Can you just talk about like the night before, like what was going on? I think of yeah, getting everybody just aligned and what was the yeah, what was the temperature in the room?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I would I would almost say it's it's kind of like going to play in the championship, right? Like no matter what sport it is. I mean, I felt like for for concrete people, like that's what it was, you know, that everyone was just geeked to to go do something that you know a lot of people have never done before. Um, so there's definitely a lot of energy, a lot of excitement, anxiety for I think probably the people that were leading it and planned it, because if it if it didn't go good, right? Like it's all everyone's gonna be looking at us, like, what did you guys do? But uh, but no, I mean, I think, you know, setting this up with like Brian said, 130 some people, you know, all in the room talking about what the game plan is. I mean, I I I'd imagine like that's exactly what championship teams do, right? Like they talk about what their game plan is and how they're gonna execute and stuff like that. And that's exactly what we did. And you know, we had uh we had a consultant, SSI was was our consultant for that, and they were there to support. And I mean, it was it was pretty awesome. It was definitely nothing I've ever done before. That was it was pretty pretty sweet.
SPEAKER_03And and so sticking with that analogy, you guys had alluded to it earlier in this discussion, but you didn't get off to a great start. First few innings, so to speak, were a little rocky. Um, explain that process and how you guys righted the ship to I guess pull out the win.
SPEAKER_01So we we we got started and realized we had a um you know a pretty lapse in service from our supplier. They were under the same stress these guys are because I mean they fail, we fail, everyone fails. So they were trying to work on a few things, but they had uh, I think three plants and then the fourth go down uh within the first couple hours due to weather and climate weather. What they were trying to do is salt to get the trucks at the hoppers. We had our consultant, SSI, we relied on them heavily to make sure everything's good, kind of an appeasement between GM and the engineers and everything. Um, I'd say about an hour into it, uh, they started saying, Hey, I I think we need to pull the plug. And uh that's like the last thing you want to hear when you got, you know, a hundred plus people there and everybody, you know, all of the planning these guys did. So we we rallied, we got a hold of the supplier, we did whatever we could to get the plants going again. And I I I think in about the third hour, fourth hour, maybe a little longer than that.
SPEAKER_00It was probably right around between the fourth and fifth hour. So like I think it was planned for we we planned for 400 yards an hour is what we were wanting to get. And I think the first couple hours we were like at 200. And it was and it was it wasn't it wasn't just I mean, yeah, it was a slew of things. It was slump, it was plants breaking down, you know, whether it's freezing up. I think the one had a power surge or something. So it was just yeah, it was definitely just a rocky, it's like not how you want to start anything, right? So yeah, once we hit, I think, you know, honestly, Tom and I, we were slump slumping trucks, so we we were we were starting to climb up on trucks, slumped uh concrete ourselves just because they were coming out of slump and it was just rather than trying to reject them, it was just adjust. We had we had the water adjusted, you know, adjustment on the truck.
SPEAKER_01Because like I said, we we just took control of it and it was the only way to get things moving again, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so then I think yeah, like right around that fourth or fifth hour mark, it kind of started coming back. We started hitting 300 yards an hour, and then from there we we slowly gained on it. I mean, there was there was hours I would say in in the middle of it. We were probably hitting 500 yards an hour. I mean, we were we were definitely cooking. Um, I think we ended up at like 320 or 330 yards an hour average overall.
SPEAKER_02The average was 365. We you're just about out of there. We we hit 500. They started they started giving it to us. They started they started they started cramming it down and they got they got up to about you know 500 an hour.
SPEAKER_01But when you're putting 500 yards an hour down eight inches thick over a surface area, these I mean these guys were amazing, they did a great job.
SPEAKER_04Can you talk about what the safety plan was for for this thing and and what that looked like?
SPEAKER_02We did a really good job with the with the safety plane, and I can't, you know, our our safety department, you know, hats off to them, they do a great job. I mean, that's why we ended up with having two shifts, so nobody got burned out, nobody got exhausted. We took our whole safety team over to to Ready Mix and did an orientation with the drivers three days before they just so they knew what they were getting into. We put everybody had uh anybody that directed trucks had uh high viz gloves, you know, it wasn't just everybody waving their arms like you know, one person is directing you. Um we had a nurse on you know, nurse station right outside the pore the whole time we rotated that person as well. I thought we I thought we did a great job.
SPEAKER_00They did a whole orientation at the hotel to, you know, as we were kind of briefing everyone with the plan. Uh they did orientation for everyone that wasn't on site. Uh we had the refreshment stations, I mean, all kinds of food, you know, energy bars, stuff like that. I mean, we had that was stocked full with all kinds of stuff.
SPEAKER_02Think about it though. I mean, we had no no issues. I mean, you you got 131 people interacting with 640, you know, seven trucks came in there. Not one, not one safety situation, not a you know, smash finger, yeah, not a splinter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, so so short of just being a rocky start, and after four to five hours, so what was that one, two in the morning? After that, things really started going. I think there was like a point too. It was like once this light started coming up Saturday morning, it was kind of thing we all kind of like grouped up. Me, you know, me, Tom, and Brian, we're like, oh yeah, we're like we got this now, right? Like we're good, like we're we got this thing, we got this thing kicked.
SPEAKER_04So I know you said you guys went and slept afterwards, but you know, what you guys finished up.
SPEAKER_02We didn't leave until the till everything was poured out. I think we even stayed a little bit longer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think yeah, we so we were there again. The placement took 20, 20 and a half hours, nine. I I thought it was 19, but it's it was 20.5, 20.5 hours. So 20 and a half hours. I think we stayed, we were probably there around 24, um, just to make sure again, all the finishing was was good and and everything was smooth on that end. And then we ended up going back to the hotel for a few hours. Not long, because I mean at that point, like you're still not sleeping, right? Like I was I was exhausted, but and I was able to sleep a little bit, but I think we were still that adrenaline. So 24 hours would have been nine o'clock Saturday night. I think, yeah, I mean, I think we were back up by four or five Sunday morning. I think by the time we got back to the hotel, took a shower, and back at the job by six o'clock for sure. For sure uh Sunday morning, just cleaning up. And at that point, I honestly like it was in pretty good shape. I mean, things were cleaned up. We had a few more hours of work and we were good to go.
SPEAKER_02Well, when we got there, they were they were already loading their trucks out. Yeah, they were already taking their trial machines and starting to load them down. I know the screeds were going on like every as quick as everything came there, it was even quicker when it was on the way out. I mean, it was planned to go 17 to 19 hours for us to place, and we just should have been out of there and I think we had 28 to 30, 30 hours or 31 hours to finish. We ended up finishing the whole thing in 32.5 hours done completely off the floor.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So what took three months to plan and 30 hours to do? Yeah, I mean, by the end of the day, Sunday, you know, we had into Monday by by Monday, because Monday was you know Art Living Day, so the plant was still shut down. So Monday, end of the day, Monday, everything had to be back to normal for the plant. And I think by Sunday evening, by Sunday afternoon, everything was done. We we had it back to the way it was, the roads were opened, we had a few things to offload, you know, that that coming week, but yeah, majority of everything was out, like nothing ever happened.
SPEAKER_03We just keep hearing these stories of this golden trowel. Like what's the story behind that and where does where does that play in in Barton Mellow lore today?
SPEAKER_01Oh boy, so through uh through uh ACI, they uh do a different a bunch of different criteria to get yourself a golden trowel. And it's very prestigious. I mean, some people get them for you know the the specific flatness of a floor or super flat floor. Well, this happened to grab a golden trowel nomination for um a world record steel fiber floor placement, which is still held by Bart and Mallow today.
SPEAKER_00I think our our FF numbers were like 54 flatness and 48, I think, levelness, which typically like a golden trolley, like you need like 90s and 80s, right? But again, due to the sheer magnitude of the of the slab itself is is kind of what helped get that. Um it's Bart Mallow's first and and only golden trowel right now at this point.
SPEAKER_04So compared to the mega slab pour, how does that compare to stuff that's gone on over the last four years, like some of these other big projects that we've been working on, whether you know, whether it's the battery facilities and things like that, um, you know, in hindsight, yes, that was the biggest one we've ever done. But now are we doing massive continuous pores like that? But are we doing big things like that now or not? Is this still stand on its own?
SPEAKER_00I mean, we we do some large placements. I think our our normal is right around 50,000 square foot slab pore. I mean, give or take. I mean, we can go definitely bigger for sure. Again, part of it too, it isn't just about, hey, this is a standard or hey, we can do this, right? We've done it once, we can do it because there is still risk there, right? There's concrete, you know, there's a lot of different layers of things that we need to make it happen. So it takes the right project. It the project has to be in the right, you know, point of construction and and all your trade partners have to be lined up. But again, some of these battery facilities don't really allow for that because you need the slabs in order to get your clean rooms and the next steps in. So it in order to wait for 500,000 square foot to be available, you're losing weeks of of other construction that need to get done. So that was what recently, you know, that when when some things were discussed, that was kind of recently what deterred us from from looking at it any further. So again, I think it's really just the right project. And you know, would we do it again? Yeah, I mean, if if the owner, if that's what we needed, or if that's what we were backed in a corner to do, I mean that's what Bart Mallow does.
SPEAKER_03This is said differently a Bart and Mallow Podcast.
SPEAKER_04For more information on the Megaslab and the GM M5 productivity improvement program, visit www.bart and mallow.com. This is said differently.