| S |
ignificant growth in Masco Corp.‘s Delta Faucet division has prompted the expansion or initiation of several projects in the past 18 months. But few have been as influenced by Mother Nature as the construction of a new, 200,000-sq.-ft. (18,600-sq.-m.) central distribution center in Jackson, Tenn. Ground broke in July 2002 at a site adjacent to an existing, 280,000-sq.-ft. (26,000-sq.-m.) Delta manufacturing plant in Jackson, but work was still being done on the center in late May.
Weather-related delays have hampered the project since last fall, but that has not affected the project adversely thanks to Masco’s centralized, construction management ap-proach to expanding property assets (see the Q&I interview with Masco’s Director of Property Management, David Hirsch, from this issue).
Increasing Clouds
“We had unusual weather for that area of Tennessee, from snowstorms and hailstorms to tornadoes and the tail end of two hurricanes early in the season before winter set in,” relates Jack Bray, Masco’s construction manager, who oversaw the Delta Faucet project. In May, a tornado came within a few miles of the project, causing light damage. But the year in retrospect provided a unique opportunity to test the construction management approach to delivering a project.
“With weather that bad, I don’t think any approach is good,” says Bray. “But construction management works the best for us, because we’re not paying a contractor to sit around in bad weather and then try to make up for lost time. They don’t make money if they’re not working. Neither do we, but we control the process. If we have to shut it down, it’s our decision, and we keep that shutdown to a minimum.”
Bray says the program has served Masco well at a time when several of the remodeling and construction supplier’s divisions are in growth mode. “We have a lot of construction under way right now,” he notes.
Site Criteria
Masco’s property management division chose Jackson, in western Tennessee, as the location of the manufacturing plant due to its proximity to other manufacturing facilities in Indiana and Oklahoma. While the project could have gone to several states, “Tennessee bent over backwards to bring us to Jackson,” says Hirsch, who serves on the Board of Directors of the Industrial Asset Management Council. “Because Jackson is near Memphis, one of its advantages is access to the various logistics assets in Memphis.” Hirsch cites the Federal Express hub, the Mississippi River and significant rail traffic as examples.
At the same time the CDC project got under way, Delta Faucet began another expansion, this time of a finishing facility in Greensburg, Ind., not far from its Indianapolis headquarters. The 477,000-sq.-ft. (44,300-sq.-m.) plant gained 27,000 sq. ft. (2,500 sq. m.) of space when the project was completed in the spring.
