The Kadlec Regional Medical Center located in Richland, Washington has taken on a project to replace all three of the main air handlers that supply air to 90,000 square feet of the hospital. The project team has spent the last year and a half in design and the last six months performing onsite preconstruction efforts.
During the week of Septebmer 26, 2021, a major milestone took place when four out of five of the new air handling units arrived onsite. To place these air handlers in their new homes, multiple departments and areas had to be shut down strategically over a four-day window so the team could safely fly them over existing buildings.
An entire road was shut down for a week to mobilize a 550T crane and a 360T crane required to pick these units, which came in pieces requiring 12 semi-trucks for transport. The original schedule allowed four days to make all the picks in multiple locations at the Kadlec campus, but due to the wind, all crane activities were shut down on day one, condensing the schedule into three days.
The construction team had to completely re-work crane plans into order to streamline and condense our workflow to achieve four days of work into a three-day window, all while maintaining existing departmental impacts that the team had spent the last month planning. This evolution of work was successful because of the great partnership with our general contractor Bouten Construction, trade partners, facilities teams, and department managers and directors.
“These lifts were some of the most highly coordinated, logistically complex lifts I have performed in my career. It takes a village to make these critical elements of work a success, especially when schedule impacts occur. This was a solid win for the entire team at Kadlec, and all of the trade partners involved that made it happen,” shares Kyle Gray, senior manager design and construction.
