At Enerfab, we are constantly exploring smarter ways to build and deliver projects. As the industry changes, we adopt new tools, implement emerging technology, and leverage our people’s experience to bring predictability to our customers.
In this first-ever episode of Building Smarter Projects, we explore the ways in which Enerfab is creating a thriving culture and investing in our business to create a better customer experience.
No matter where we operate, our teams deliver excellence, safety, and ingenuity on your projects. By partnering with our prefabrication and modular capabilities, we can deliver projects SMARTER, faster, safer, and more efficiently.
Read the Full Transcript
Brad Birck (Enerfab Chief Growth Officer): Welcome to Building Smarter Projects, a podcast dedicated to exploring how Enerfab continues to adapt to the dynamic world of construction and technology.
I’m your host Brad Birck, and I’m excited to film our very first episode today.
[Music] You know, Enerfab has a very storied history. Been around for over 120 years.
We started in the brewing industry, literally lining the inside of wooden beer barrels with brewer’s pitch. I often joke that it wasn’t much more than tar since we moved into Stucco during prohibition, but we grew up through that brewing industry and then went on to employ thousands of workers in the heavy utility and industrial.
And we’re at a very exciting time as we look to what’s emerging now with electric vehicles, data centers, and all the power that’s going to be needed to fuel all that growth.
In each episode, we’ll dive deep into various topics such as changing markets, unique technology, culture, industry partners, and all the exciting projects that we’re involved in.
We’ll be bringing in different voices from around our company, as well as from vendors, partners, and owners, to give you a comprehensive view of what makes Enerfab a leader in our field.
We hope that you enjoy this format as we talk about how we’re trying to build smarter. In this very first episode, I’ll be interviewing Aaron Landolt, CEO of Enerfab. With that, let’s get started on the episode.
Hi, Aaron.
Aaron Landolt (Enerfab Chief Executive Officer): What’s going on, Brad?
Brad: Welcome.
So, diving right in, you know, this is a very different concept.
Aaron: It’s a very different format, for sure.
Brad: We’ve never done anything like this. The lights are bright and hot, and we’re figuring it out. But what do you hope to get out of this podcast? You know, why are we doing this?
Aaron: Yeah, I just think it’s another medium to reach our employees and really talk about our culture, talk about the cool things that are going on in the business, and really just connect another way to connect with our employees and get the message out.
Brad: We’ve got so many exciting things going on.
I mean, even for us, you know, where we get to sit, I mean, every day you hear about something like, “Gosh, I didn’t even know we were doing that.”
Or, “Oh, wow, that really took off over there.”
So, I think being able to have another format to share all those exciting things and get it out to everyone, you know, that can use them.
Aaron: And yeah, and I think it’s a good dynamic because we’re really learning things every week. And so, from week to week, we’re trying to connect with our teams from across the company. This is another way that we can get it done.
Brad: Absolutely.
You know, we talk about our pillars and our strategic plan and too that we’ve obviously been focused on for many years is, you know, maximizing our current customers, you know, doing business with the folks we’ve been doing business with for a long time and, you know, continue to support them and evolve with them as their business has changed.
And the other part is identifying new markets and diversifying. And I love what you just said about how we learn in every day because I think in the last two weeks, we’ve had some meetings that have completely educated us on different emerging markets around that data center space and then, you know, the energy that’s going to fuel that growth.
And it’s exciting because you think, you know, stuff and…
Aaron: Right.
And I think it’s funny as we talk about maximize and diversify. Well, you know, one day it’s a maximizing, you know, a piece of our business that could be an emerging market, you know, because those, you know, repurposing those assets and things and trying to get out there in front of our customers to understand where they’re going and be more of a valued solutions provider for them.
Brad: What does building smarter projects mean? You know, we talk about this a lot. What does that mean?
Aaron: Yeah, when we really came up with it, it was around taking those not just best practices, but the tools that are out there, the technology that’s out there.
And I think the experience that’s around our organization and deploying that, you know, full force to bring predictability to our customers and ourselves and our shareholders.
So really looking at the latest and greatest tools that continue to develop.
And, not that we want to adopt every new emerging tool, but which ones fit our business the best to support our customers and really just approaching things differently.
I think that predictable results piece is a big piece of it.
Brad: You know, when you say building smarter, building smarter projects, you know, initially you kind of go straight to like laser scanning or 3D modeling and things like that.
But it’s so much more than that. It’s like part of our culture. It can be as simple as creating a better form. It can be as simple as putting an app in a safety guy’s hand to address a problem quicker. It’s how we do business.
Aaron: Yeah, at the end of the day, it is how we how we do business is about bringing that all together.
So, I think the laser scanning piece you talked about, we’ve been doing that for several years, but now how do you take that and convert it to a smart estimate that we can put quick budgets together and really get out there in front of things in a much more informed way earlier, you know, and be that emerging partner with our customers.
Brad: And then what do you do with the laser scanner?
OK, so we went out and laser scanned.
Aaron: But then for us, we could open up so many different possibilities from prefabrication to, you know, and what I think what we’re finding out is we know our customers’ plants better than they do in a lot of ways because they have a lot of turnover and they move people from plant to plant.
We’re the constant, you know, we’ve been there for a long time.
And if we can get that, take those snapshots in history and take all that history of projects we’ve done for them and the outage world and our capital projects and deploy those in Kansas City of what we learned in Cincinnati and vice versa.
That’s about building smarter projects.
Brad: It’s interesting there because you said we’re the constant and that’s so true in a lot of cases, but in reality, our culture is all about adaptability, too.
Aaron: Right, for sure.
Brad: So, we are the constant at these plants, but we’re constantly adapting too.
And I think that’s a unique part of our culture to be able to handle change and to roll with it.
Brad: So that’s one of the questions I have for you, you know, as long as you’ve been at Enerfab and starting as a co-op and working through your career, you know, how has Enerfab, you know, being over 120 years old, been able to stay adaptable for all those years?
Aaron: At the end of the day, it’s going to be about the markets and the customers, right?
You know, there’s ebbs and flows that go along and being a partner alongside of them, communicating about what’s what we see and what’s coming up.
And I think our knowledge of labor and where they are deployed throughout the country and being able to like pick up those resources and apply them to different projects is a real part of that adaptability.
But also, just taking that experience that we’ve learned from cutting, welding, beveling, you know, all the different things that we do from the legacy business to the future business, it really goes hand in hand.
So, it’s really not that different, but it’s about the approach and being more adaptable and being there for our customers.
Brad: But do you think any company can do that?
Or do you think we’re, you know, our culture allows us to do that?
Aaron: I think culture plays a big part in it because change is hard, right?
Everybody wants to, they say they want to change until they really get into it.
It’s uncomfortable, but at the end of the day, we’re only going to continue to change and evolve as fast as, you know, the tools that we develop and the processes that we put in place.
But at the end of the day, I think it’s really about bringing those customers or employees together and rallying behind the purpose of those changes and really being part of that. I know like right now we’re looking at Procore, you know, rolling it out here in the next three or four months across our business.
That’s going to be a change. It’s really a process change and a technology change at the same time. It touches our quality department, our safety department, our project controls department, etc. Just really leveraging that tool to make us more consistent and better across projects.
Brad: Well, and that tool is interesting because it’s going to touch our customers, our partners, our vendors, so, it’s one of those tools we spend a lot of time researching, but we know it’s the right choice to take our business to that next level, I think, right?
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s just one example of that.
I think with our SAP implementation of the new S/4HANA last year that we did, which ended up being very successful, we probably scratched the surface of 20% of what that tool can really provide, but it really connects us with our customers’ systems. You know, we can provide daily updates, hourly updates if we really wanted to.
We could actually integrate that in with their maintenance system and really talk and pull and push information back and forth. That’s another building smarter.
Brad: Well, I was going to say, I think that’s so interesting because we talk about building smarter projects, and no offense to Rajesh and the IT team. You know, when you talk about S/4HANA, it might not be the sexiest thing out there when you’re looking at laser scanners and drones and things like that, but in reality, that is providing so much function in our business and allowing us to do so much more with our customers around our mission of being transparent and taking care of our customers’ needs and meeting them where they are because as we’ve talked about a million times, our customers continue to change their staffing, you know, their experience, so the people that have been there forever are no longer there. And so, you said that earlier, we were that constant.
So, they’re relying on us more and more.
Well, we got to make our systems be able to give that information in real-time to our supervision, our frontline people, but then also our customers.
Maybe talk a little bit about that. You know, what have we done? So obviously we’re on SAP. A lot of our customers are on Maximo or other things.
How are we integrating with our customers for that?
Aaron: I think aligning on how the project structure is set up, you know, being that constructability partner early on projects, so we can think through the steps together versus getting a spec and say, oh, this is how it’s going to be built.
We’ll talk to the construction partner, us, Enerfab, right? And being that thought leader on thinking, how can we modularize a section of this plant and move that work off-site and control that labor and workforce in a controlled environment?
That’s some things that we’ve been able to add to the table that our competition can’t, right? I mean, they don’t have the shop network that we do and the visibility and where those workers are that can travel around the country.
And hey, we can get 50 at this site deployed, you know, by next week. Well, in other parts of the country, it’s not that easy. Yeah, our ability to scale with the projects. And I think I always talk to marketing about this because we talk about our connected shop network. And that’s great. Is that 10,000 square feet, 20,000? No, we have 750,000 square feet of connected shops across, you know, the Midwest.
Aaron: But we also have partnership, right?
Brad: We have partners.
Aaron: We’ve developed that whole network of partnerships that can really support these projects in different geographies around the country.
But we have a regimented process in order to get there. And I think that’s, you know, really doing some of those creative things that align with our customer goals, but they don’t necessarily trust it because it is changed for them too, right? So, it’s a different way of approaching a project.
But through patience and education and then results, right? Delivering the value. They really see that as a, “Oh, wow, the aha moment,” right? And I think that’s something that really sets us apart.
Brad: Well, and I agree. And just the level of quality our shops have too.
So, when you meet with a customer that you ship 10,000 pieces of welded pipe to, and they’ve had one minor issue, I mean, that speaks to that level of quality. And that’s what allows us to do that offsite fabrication, and it makes us unique in the market because the rework is so much less for our partners out there.
So even if we’re not installing it, people are coming back time and time again.
Aaron: And we’ve had that too. Where, you know, at Enerpipe up in Wisconsin, our shop there, they’re precision fabricator to your point. They can get within plus or minus 16-inch tolerances. That’s building smarter too. They figured out a way to deliver that better than others, right?
And so, we’ve seen customers go, and they went with a maybe a more cost-effective option in the short term, but then they come back, and they’re like, hey, it took us twice as long to install it in the field that second time. Those field labor dollars are more expensive than shop labor dollars in most cases.
Brad: I think that whole thing is very interesting to me because I think about I was recently up at Enerpipe sales guys touring around looking at stuff and it’s like all cool to us, you know, but just the care put into the shipping containers on the back end to make sure that everything showed up exactly the way it was, labeled properly, and the first one that they were going to need is on top. I mean, they think through all of that so that it just makes it easy for our customers out there in the field. And I just think that’s a unique part of our culture too.
Aaron: That’s a great point because they don’t just provide pipe to us. They’re providing it to 90% of their customers, who are not us, right? And so, understanding that constructability aspect to be able to support the customers is the ultimate goal.
Brad: Well, we just finished up our fiscal year and so we’re into our new year, happy new year. And we’re coming off a pretty exciting year and next year looks great.
How are we feeling that growth? What are those markets you’re seeing out there right now?
Aaron: Sure. I think over the last two years, it was the new margin market for us was obviously the battery plant, EV market, right? And I think we’ve learned there that kind of that industrial commercial blend of work is something that we’re really good at.
And it’s frankly much easier than what we’ve been doing for the last 50, 60 years in construction in the industrial environment. So being able to take what we’ve learned there to other markets such as the data center market — we see that as an exploding market for us and looking at that modularization piece. There’s pockets of, you know, embracing those mindsets out there and really being that predictable provider for those groups as well.
But yeah, mechanical work, electrical work, the equipment setting, and setting those modules. That’s all a piece of that, and we’re seeing really a lot of opportunities to really expand that be able to deliver labor in a big way across the country.
Brad: Right. As we’re out there talking to the data center people and getting to know them because I mean, there’s no question that market.
Just it’s going to be huge for the next 10 to 15 years with the artificial intelligence build-out and everything else going on. And, you know, we’re learning new terms and things like that, but it’s exciting because we’re going in there and they’re saying, well, have you ever built a data center before?
Well, not exactly, but here’s the things that we have done. And they’re like, that’s really relatable. We don’t have enough people like you.
And as those designs are changing, you know, we’re in a really neat spot to add value to that market. So, I think what else is really exciting for us as Enerfab is that whole market is driven by megawatts.
Aaron: Right.
Brad: And so, we do power and water and hopefully data centers and EV plants. So, tying all that together, the power demand that we’re going to need over the next few years that we’re well suited.
Aaron: Well, and that’s what we’re seeing. It’s extending the life of some of our existing customers. We talked about the maximize pillar earlier. It’s extending the life of some of their plants, but it’s also creating new projects for gas plants.
You know, we’re seeing combined cycles, simple cycles, and even some of the data centers are talking about building an on-site power plant just for their campus. Well, that’s things that we’ve done for a lot of years, right? And being able to blend those two together and bridge the gap, I think is a really powerful tool.
Brad: The other thing when you talk about maximizing in that whole space is the cold-to-gas conversions we’re seeing as well and the partnerships we’re developing there.
And so, you know, knowing our customers and being there for them when they could take on those projects, we’re a trusted source to go in there and change their boiler over to gas and maybe eventually hydrogen down the line.
Aaron: Yeah. And I think we’re in a different position today than we were, you know, 10 years ago when that boom started, right?
When they started converting some things to gas, we just got a bid package. We’re now getting involved in the front-end planning and being more of a constructability partner.
The utilities are coming to us directly to talk about their upcoming forecast of projects and really our reputation is really carrying the day.
Brad: Well, we’ve put a lot of investment in the company over the last year. You know, we can list them off, you know, we’ll forget some, but you know, even just the S4HANA, we talked about for, you know, upgrading our earpieces, and so we have real-time data and new reports for our field supervision, our customers.
When you look at the $2 million we put into the beamline at our steel shop, you look at the opening of our new module shop in Harrison and our new office up in Michigan. I mean, all the investments we’ve done over the next year, it’s been really exciting to kind of set us up for this next growth.
What else do you see coming over the next year that we need to do to position ourselves for this continued growth?
Aaron: Yeah, I think we’re doing it now. Procore is one of those examples we talked about, but really getting that consistent way of delivering projects and delivering kind of on our promise to our customer.
Right? I think that’s the investments in those tools and the technology that’s out there. One clear one is, you know, we’re updating our tools to be ready for AI, right? And we just ordered, what, 200 new laptops to deploy that have the new chips in it to allow that AI to take advantage of that AI tools in our business, and that’s taking that 15 years’ worth of data that we have from our original SAP implementation and harness the power of that to be able to provide quick decisions, quick answers to our project teams.
Brad: Right, right. And even maybe, you know, we’re looking at some projects now or even looking at how do we use AI for estimating percent, you know, how to do quicker takeoffs.
Aaron: Yeah, we just had a meeting last week, I know, with our Enerpipe Group and really developing kind of some AI standards for how we’re going to do takeoffs and how we extract models and things like that, that the tools are there.
Right. And you got to be, you know, sometimes an early leader to be able to take advantage of that. Sometimes it doesn’t all stick, right, but it’s failed quickly, and it’s moved to a different technology if that doesn’t work. But that’s the entrepreneurial spirit that we’re trying to create across this company. Right. And I think we’ve talked about that for the last, you know, probably five years and we’re seeing it. People are bringing ideas to the table and hey, we’re incentivizing that behavior. We’ve got some of our rewards programs and, you know, challenge coins and all those things that bring those ideas in. We are not just going to sit here and do things the way we’ve always done them.
Brad: Yeah, it’s interesting as you grow as a company, you know, maintaining, you know, our corporate, we hate the word corporate, you know, we, you know, maintaining our culture that just kind of makes us Enerfab and we’ve talked about this for years. I mean, that’s one of those things you almost can’t put your finger on.
You know, is it integrity? Is it trust? Is it, you know, willing to take on a challenge, thinking differently? You know, what, what makes our culture different? I think it’s caring. I think it’s, you know, being there for each other.
Aaron: It’s 100% the people, right? It’s surrounding yourselves with the people that will take care of you when you need help and really all pulling in the same direction. Or as Daniel would say, you know, rowing the boat in the same direction, but getting those people to buy into where we’re going and communicating that vision over and over again.
And they’re part of it, right? It’s not just our vision. It’s the corporate vision of, you know, success and where we’re going and being exciting, creating opportunities for them to continue to grow, develop, get new training.
We’re all about that. And I think people that work here for a period of time, they realize, okay, it’s more than just a place to come to work. It’s, it’s just a part of the family, right? It’s, it’s where we’re going and being part of that excitement.
Brad: Well, thanks for sharing your insights today. I think we’re both excited for this podcast, but you know, I think it’s an exciting time to be at Enerfab, in this industry, and in this country right now, and I think there’s so much opportunity ahead of us.
And it’s really just, you know, hey, let’s go take a hold of it. Yeah, let’s, let’s go do it. So, you know, that kind of wraps up our first episode of Building Smarter Projects. We hope you enjoyed it and found it insightful.
Stay tuned for our next episode. We’re going to continue to dive deep into exciting topics and bring you more voices from the field, and we encourage you to listen, ask questions, give us feedback, and we thank you.
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