San Bernardino Sustainability Park | San Bernardino, California

Gang forms arrive built and ready at the San Bernardino Sustainability Park

San Bernardino, California

A Decades-Long Relationship, A New Way of Working

Sukut Construction, a Southern California heavy civil contractor, has turned to EFCO for concrete formwork going back decades in the Los Angeles market. When formwork came up for the Sustainability Park, the choice came down to two things: a trusted relationship with their EFCO Territory Manager and a wall system built for maximum efficiency. The project marked their first major job together in several years, and their first time using EFCO’s E-BEAM & SUPER STUD® wall formwork system. Unfamiliar equipment usually means slower early pours while crews learn it. EFCO took a different approach. Every gang form arrived fully preassembled from EFCO’s yard in Fresno, built by EFCO crews and ready to go to work.

Could Gangs This Large Arrive Preassembled?

Sukut needed gang forms measuring 52′ 6″ long by 14′ high (16.0 m by 4.3 m), larger than any wall formwork gangs EFCO’s Fresno operation had ever preassembled and shipped to a customer. Nothing about that size was routine. Panels had to stay square over nearly the full length of a truck, connections had to hold through highway miles, and every unit had to be built right the first time.

Vertical E-BEAM® sections carried the height while horizontal SUPER STUD® walers tied the panels into one rigid unit. Shop assembly put every bolt, tie location, and connection under controlled conditions, in the hands of crews who build gang forms every day. The gangs arrived square and tight, and the finished walls showed it: clean, uniform concrete pour after pour on a standard plywood face.

Gang forms measuring 52' 6" by 14'. the largest wall formwork gangs EFCO's Fresno yard has ever preassembled and shipped.

How Do You Set a 52-Foot Gang Form Without a Site Crane?

Lifting formwork gangs this size takes planning, and this site had no dedicated crane. EFCO engineering worked with Sukut before delivery to map out every pick, matching gang weights and rigging geometry to the lifting equipment Sukut had on site. That plan let crews hoist each gang straight off the truck and set it in place in one move, with no staging in between.

The rigging itself called for something new: EFCO engineered a hybrid lifting eye for these gangs, combining a standard EFCO lifting eye with the connection hardware already built into the forms. Getting the gangs to the site took the same forethought. Loads this long required pilot cars on the highway, and EFCO sequenced the deliveries so forms arrived in the order crews needed them.

Preassembled gang being lifted up. EFCO Engineering matched every single pick, using lifting equipment that Sukut already had on hand.

Where Does Preassembly Save Money?

Preassembly saves money on field labor, and that is where Lowest in-Place Concrete Cost (LIPCC) showed up on this job. Sukut’s crew was brand new to EFCO forms and picked the system up quickly, forming and pouring 50 to 52 ft (15.2 to 15.8 m) of wall at a time. The crew found the gangs easy to cycle, rigid, and durable. Two numbers explain why. EFCO engineered the gangs for 1,000 pounds per square foot (47.9 kPa) of pour pressure, so crews could place full-height lifts at a production rate instead of slowing the pour to protect the forms. The tie pattern covers 28 square feet (2.6 m²) of wall per tie, which holds the tie count down across a 52 ft (15.8 m) gang. Every tie a crew does not set is a tie it does not pull and a hole it does not patch. Across thousands of feet of wall, that arithmetic is field labor.

The crews never built formwork on site and never gave up laydown space to gang assembly. They set forms, poured walls, and moved to the next section. Freight cost more than a standard shipment would have, but the results made the trade worth it.

View of the gangs in place. Crews found teh preassembled gangs easy to cycle, rigid, and durable across repeated pours throughout the project.

Why Sukut Chose EFCO

EFCO delivered a finished product, not a kit of parts. Gang forms larger than EFCO’s Fresno yard had ever built, an engineered lift for a site without a crane, and support through every pour all pointed at the same target: concrete in place, on schedule, at the lowest cost. High productivity in EFCO’s yard became high productivity on Sukut’s jobsite. For contractors weighing preassembled gang formwork on their next industrial concrete forming project, the San Bernardino Sustainability Park shows where the concrete construction cost savings come from.

“Working with EFCO has been a tremendous experience from start to finish. From my very first conversation with Eric about an idea, through multiple planning and engineering meetings, it was clear that EFCO was committed to developing the right solution, not just selling a product. Their engineering team, field support, and commitment to collaboration transformed an idea into a well-designed system that was delivered to our project ready for success. Once the system arrived on-site, our crews quickly learned the process alongside EFCO’s outstanding field support team. Together, we put the system to the test, and it exceeded our expectations. The results spoke for themselves: faster cycle times, increased production, and the ability to complete our project on time and under budget. I’m a firm believer that the time invested in planning and constructing a system with experienced professionals before field activities begin is never wasted. That upfront collaboration creates the safest, most efficient, and most productive path to success. EFCO’s approach of combining engineering expertise with hands-on field support is exactly what helped make this project a success.”

— Trever Haley, Superintendent, Sukut Construction