January 26, 2012

K.C. WELDING

K.C. Welding Ltd. needed about 4,000 tonnes of steel to build a new Target distribution centre in Milton, Ontario.

Steel on target in Milton, Ontario Target warehouse construction

DON PROCTER

correspondent

American discount retail giant Target has big plans for Canada. The Minneapolis-based company will open numerous stores across the country by 2013.

The move gives some builders reason to smile. K.C. Welding Ltd. is an example. The Angus, Ontario-based steel erector is putting up a 1.3 million-square-foot steel “joist, truss and girder box” frame for Target’s distribution centre in Milton.

Being a basic steel box, the project doesn’t present any unusual engineering challenges but the erector faces a fast-track schedule for a “big job,” says Gary Hooper, general manager, K.C. Welding.

“We have 4,400 tonnes of steel and we have about 12 to 14 weeks to complete the job.” The speedy building pace isn’t unusual these days. Customers demand quick completions. Hooper points out.

To meet the timeline, the steel erector is constructing the big warehouse in three stages – essentially as three separate buildings joined together under one roof. “If we did this job as one building it might take us four or five months to complete.”

The three will be connected through a series of expansion joints, a straightforward process, he says.

To ensure all steel is fabricated on time and ready for assembly, separate fabrication contracts for each building were awarded to ACL Steel Ltd., Telco Steel Works and M&G Steel Ltd.

K.C. Welding assigned erection crews of about 10 per building (including three crane operators), each job led by a general foreman and foreman to coordinate work for each contract.

The mobile cranes include 80- and 75-tonne Terex cranes and a 40-tonne Link-Belt. Hooper says meeting the ever-tight schedules like the Target job would have been difficult in the 1990s partly because today’s erection equipment has more capability of getting the work done quickly.

“They only started making cranes like these 10 or so years ago.” Strides in the development of design software have also improved markedly.

Hooper says weather had been on the side of the erector in December, helping to ensure schedules were maintained. The erection should wrap up in February. General contractor for the distribution centre is Cooper Construction Ltd.

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