Zekelman Industries, a steel pipe and tube manufacturer known for its modular design and construction capabilities, has launched a nationwide marketing campaign about its ability to supply steel forms for mission-critical projects—considered a market that continues to strain mills and fabricators due to the need for large steel sections for data centers, semiconductor fabs, life sciences complexes and pharmaceutical production facilities.
The national ad campaign is being shown on primetime television and cable news as well as traditional markets for Zekelman such as trade publications, says Jim Marsh, who joined the company in April as executive director for digital and mission critical infrastructure. He had previously had similar roles at Swedish machinery manufacturer Munters and Capitol Power Group.
“The relationship with the supply chain being as stressed as it is, the demand being five times what it was two years ago for everything there have to be new ways of looking at sourcing,” Marsh said. “It’s not just about getting product. We talk about domestic versus import quality, global warming potential and environmental product declarations, all of this factors in. What is important to the end user may not be the same as what’s important to contractors and everyone else in the food chain.”
Zekelman produces a wide range of steel forms, from jumbo hollow structural sections to conduit for electrical contractors. The ad campaign stresses that the manufacturer can source materials domestically and quickly for data centers and other high-demand projects, and can reduce onsite labor demand through offsite prefabrication.
“The smartest thing that can happen from a process standpoint [is prefabrication],” he said. “When you ship raw materials to the field, today’s projects are huge, so big that you have multiple general contractors and multiple mechanical, electrical and structural contractors in the same building, The goal is for things to look the same and work the same everywhere—having factory production to put it together and minimize the amount of field labor, and it’s the same labor. If you’re doing a factory, it is more efficient and quality controls and documentation are better. So that’s where this integration class came in.”
Marsh said if contractors are waiting on large steel sections for data center projects, hollow structural sections can be a solution.
“HSS is a lead product because one of its uses is pipe piling,” Marsh said. “In certain soils, deep foundation is warranted for these data centers, and that means a steel pipe pile. That’s one of the first things, obviously, on the site. We do underground PVC conduit as well as steel conduit, thin walls and rigid intermediate walls. We have a whole host of solutions.”
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Source: www.enr.com
