Relationships Are Built on Trust
“In all of my years of building quality, exciting, and intricate bridge structures, the innovative aptitudes of our Johnson Bros. and EFCO team never ceases to amaze me. We have been able to provide outstanding products in times that most would say are impossible. I am thankful to have a group of professionals we can rely on for continued success!”
– Mike Brown, Johnson Bros. Project Manager
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Bham Now & EFCO Corp. Relationships Are Built on Trust
Relationships take time to develop and once formed, these partnerships can accomplish great things together.
The collaboration between EFCO and Johnson Bros. has been creating innovative forming solutions for years.
Large, complex projects require more than quoting a price, signing a contract, and emailing drawings. Success requires a partnership based on trust to jointly design the concrete and formwork for the lowest in-place concrete costs. When the engineered solution is the focus, the paperwork is secondary. Johnson Bros. has invested a significant amount of time in forming this invaluable relationship, because they know EFCO’s nationwide network will support them wherever they go. This is especially important for complex projects.
One such large, complex project for the Johnson Bros. and EFCO partnership is in Birmingham, Alabama. Johnson Bros. was awarded the $475 million I-20/59 Bridge Replacement & Approach Project contract that included a $250,000 per day incentive/disincentive agreement for a March 21, 2020 open to traffic target date. With this in mind, both Johnson Bros. and EFCO went to work finding the right solution with the best value and lowest in-place concrete cost!
Complex problems require creative solutions. EFCO was there when the United States interstate system was built and rebuilt. Our decades of experience offer us the unique position in the forming industry to share our expertise while working together to find the right solution to concrete forming challenges.
With 171 pier caps and columns to pour, time was of the essence for EFCO to help Johnson Bros. find the right solution. All of the team members put their most valuable asset—their time—at risk in a Research and Development process of experimentation with no guarantee a better solution existed. They value engineered the design to save money, optimized the forming sequence, and developed a Johnson Bros. proprietary process never done before. They designed a precast PLATE GIRDER® cap and column solution that could be cycled quickly, poured safely, and used multiple times with consistent architectural concrete finish.
This collaborative approach ensured that the optimal solution was utilized to overcome this project’s tight time
constraints.