Southwest Industrial Rigging Brochure by North American Constructors Journal

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Southwest Industrial Rigging:

Your Heavy Lifting and Hauling Needs SWIR provides turnkey crane, rigging, and machinery moving services throughout the Southwest and beyond Written by Kevin Doyle Produced by Stephen Marino

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stablished by company President and Owner Harry Baker with a single crane in 1985, Phoenixbased Southwest Industrial Rigging has grown into a well regarded provider of crane, rigging, and machinery moving services throughout the Southwest and beyond. Southwest Industrial Rigging is a true one-stop shop with multiple divisions offering an array of services. The Crane Division operates and maintains state-of-the-art industrial and rough terrain cranes while the Heavy Transport Division hauls loads of any size. The company also offers machinery moving, warehousing, and welding and fabrication services. “The diversity of the company and the amount of what we can offer to our customers sets us apart. It keeps the customer from having to hire three or four different companies to do what we can do in-house,” says Vice President of Operations Mike Madge. “There are so many amazing things we can do here. I don’t like to hear ‘We can’t do that.’ We’ll figure out a way to do it, and get the job done safely.” Today the company maintains four locations in Arizona, employs 155 and works across the country. Its fleet of approximately 1,000 pieces of equipment includes nearly 100

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Southwest Industrial Rigging | 4 cranes. In fact, the company has spent approximately $14 million on new cranes over the past few years, highlighted by the purchase of two 330T Liebherr Crawler cranes in 2016 and the purchase of a Tadano ATF 400-G6 in 2017. “We have cranes to handle most any job and our trailers are able to be pieced together depending on the size and dimension of the piece being moved,” says Andrea Williams, the

Southwest Industrial Rigging | 5 company’s head of Public Relations and Business Development.

Working Safely Because the company services such a diverse range of industries and clients, Williams says safety training is ongoing and ever-involving as SWIR strives for industry best standards. “Our crane operators are certified in a national program and our riggers are

qualified through on-the-job training and instructor led Advanced Rigging Courses. Our people are very well trained and they are re-certified or re-qualified every 12 months to three years, depending on the industry we’re working in. Every industry has their own set of regulations that we have to follow, so we have to stay on top of those to make sure we not only meet, but also go above and beyond the standards. We’ve done a really good job of that,” Williams

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Southwest Industrial Rigging | 6 says, adding that “we strive to keep the number of incidents and injuries down, that is our goal.” Employees are accountable for injury prevention as well as property loss caused by accidents. Madge says the amount of training SWIR operators and riggers receive is second to none and enables them to complete each job to the company’s exacting standards, safely and on time.

Doing The Job SWIR is currently involved in the $1.7bn Loop (South Mountain Freeway) project for the Arizona Department of Transportation. It will

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add 22 miles of freeway to the Phoenix metropolitan system, connecting the east and west valley. Project completion is targeted for late 2019. “We have around 14 cranes on that project right now and every couple of months we move our large cranes there for bridge work. It’s one of the biggest projects we’ve been involved with in our history,” says Madge. The company is also involved in another freeway project in Las Vegas and has transported multiple girders to that location. It also recently completed work on two Apple facilities in Arizona and Oregon.

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The diversity of the company

and the amount of what we can offer to our customers sets us apart. It keeps the customer from having to hire three

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or four different companies to do what we can do in-house.

- Mike Madge, VP of Operations Williams says the investment in equipment has paid dividends “especially on the crane side. We have the machines our customers need. They function properly and they don’t break down.” Project Managers work closely with clients throughout the life-cycle of every job, ensuring that problems are handled in a timely manner and that potential delays are identified and avoided. The company self-performs the vast majority of its work but when sub-contractors are needed, SWIR examines their safety history, their financial health, and their ability to meet SWIR’s insurance requirements. The company most often utilizes sub-contractors on the

transportation side for services such as pilot cars and police escorts. In regard to technology, Madge says “we’ve just launched a whole new system to make the company run more efficiently.” The company partnered with WrightPlan, in Ontario Canada to create a solution that would tie all functions and divisions together on one system.

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“

It is important to groom and

train our existing work force so that they can grow within the company … We have to be self-sustaining in some regards to maintain the pool of skilled

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labor required in our line of work. - Andrea Williams,

Public Relations and Business Development

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“Since we started the implementation in 2016, we are more effectively managing our jobs from start to finish, giving us more control over the expenditure of resources. That allows us to provide better project projections and budgets to our customers and has improved the overall sustainability and health of the company,” says Williams. “Running a crane 10 years ago is very different than operating a crane now just because of the constantly upgrading computer systems. Our operators take training classes to not only keep in compliance, but to stay on top of industry regulations and safe practices,” Williams points out.

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Since its small beginnings in Casa Grande, AZ, the company has strived to maintain a good reputation for completing projects safely, on time, and with state of the art equipment. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our past growth and projected growth relies heavily on providing excellent service to the existing industries we work within and obtaining new clients in new industries. In order to work for clients in new industries, we have to research and stay on top of regulations and safety requirements in those fields. We strive to make that a core part of our vision, â&#x20AC;&#x153; says Williams.

Some Challenges www.swirusa.com

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As is the case across every sector of the construction industry, procuring quality replacements as older operators retire is difficult. Specifically, in the crane industry, replacing exiting talent with new talent has become more of a challenge in recent years as younger generations are choosing to pursue careers in other industries. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is important to groom and train our existing work force so that they can grow within the company. A lot of our employees that start off as drivers and riggers eventually become equipment operators when they show an aptitude for the trade and a willingness to put in the extra effort. We have to be selfsustaining in some regards to maintain the pool of skilled labor required in our line of work,â&#x20AC;? Williams notes.