ACCO Is Key Player On Big Team Projects

the Construction resource
October 7, 2013
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enr.com
McGRAW HILL FINANCIAL
Engineering News-Record
TOP specialty contractors n ENR california firm of the year
ACCO Is Key Player
On Big Team Projects
Big Duct A
worker installs
part of the 1.1
million lb of
sheet metal on
the 450,000-sqft Cedars-Sinai
Advanced Health
Sciences Pavilion
in Los Angeles.
From Levi’s Stadium for the San Francisco 49ers in
the north to Dodger Stadium’s renovation in the south,
ACCO Engineered Systems has become known throughout the California construction industry as a valued
member of teams that build ultra-fast-track projects.
During the recession, ACCO made the seemingly contrarian decision to retain key employees and invest in
its business. That allowed the Glendale-based firm to
have expertise at the ready to tackle major projects that
moved forward just as the economy took a turn for the
better. As a result, ACCO’s in-state 2012 revenue rose by
more than 40%, to $622 million. This year, it is projecting a further gain.
The 79-year-old firm’s mechanical, piping and controls expertise has garnered respect among the region’s
most-active general contractors. That reputation played
a key role in ACCO’s selection as ENR California’s Specialty Contractor of the Year.
“ACCO is among the best organized subcontractors
that we’ve worked with,” says Bob Aylesworth, execu-
Photo Courtesy of ACCO
Investments in people and infrastructure have made ACCO a top choice for
design-build jobs By Scott Blair
TOP specialty contractors n ENR california firm of the year
tive vice president of Hunt Construction Group’s Irvine
office. Early this year, Hunt wrapped up a $100-million
renovation of Dodger Stadium in a tight time frame.
“Their skill set was very well suited for the assignment,”
Aylesworth says.
ACCO brings a range of services to its projects, including engineering, cost analysis, constructibility reviews and life-cycle costing. “Depending on what the
reception of the customer or the team is, the earlier we
are in there, the higher the success rate for us because we
can positively affect that project more,” says Peter Narbonne, president and COO of ACCO’s Southern California group.
As the mechanical engineer and contractor on Levi’s
Stadium in Santa Clara, ACCO was quick to hit the field.
It mobilized 125 engineers and field personnel to design and install 875,000 tons of sheet metal and miles
of condenser and hot-water piping. The project team is
using a hybrid integrated project delivery (IPD) method
to design and build the stadium in less than two-and-ahalf years from the February 2012 bid date.
The delivery method was particularly successful in
scheduling and logistics, says Frank Nascimento, ACCO
project executive. “The joint venture welcomed and
looked for input from [ACCO] and all the trade subs,
and the team came with enough ideas where that collaboration resulted in a plan that was able to get executed.”
Photo Courtesy of ACCO
Speedy Recovery
The recession hit ACCO along with the rest of the U.S.
industry. Narbonne says the firm became more selective
in the work it pursued, avoiding marginal work driven
solely by price. That strategy led to a decline in revenue.
When private-sector work dropped off, ACCO “had
to retool ourselves to chase some of the public projects
around the state and out of state in order to create that
growth while the private sector rebounded,” says Jeff
Marrs, executive vice president for project groups.
The firm took on several large courthouse jobs. They
include the recently completed $343-million Long
Beach courthouse, the $272-million San Bernardino courthouse—slated to finish next year—and the
600,000-sq-ft federal courthouse in Los Angeles, which
broke ground in August. The Los Angeles project, which
is seeking a LEED-Platinum rating, features a 225-kW
combined cooling, heating and power system.
The Long Beach courthouse, the product of a publicprivate partnership, gave ACCO’s engineering staff the
task of analyzing the proper mechanical systems based
on life-cycle costs, because the developer will service
and maintain the building for an annual performancebased fee for 35 years, Marrs says.
When the economy brightened, ACCO’s business
picked up, based on “getting back to basics and good
business practices,” Narbonne says. “When the economy came back, we came back at a high velocity.”
ACCO’s internal investment decisions also helped
speed its recovery. “That has been our tradition: When
faced with construction cyclicality, we’ve actually invested in our company,” says Ken Westphal, president
and COO of the firm’s building services group. “Where
most people were reducing overhead and reducing infrastructure, we were actually building infrastructure.”
ACCO also had the financial wherewithal to avoid
painful layoffs. “When other contractors were cutting
back, we had the opportunity to pick up some highly
skilled people that were portable; that gave us an opportunity,” Westphal says. “Skilled people knocked on
our door, and we made room.”
In 2010, the company initiated an employee stock
ownership plan in which most workers have participated. “It’s made us more productive,” Marrs says.
“You’ve got everybody engaged at a different level.” It
also is another draw to attract new talent, he adds.
ACCO’s high staff-retention rate has led to repeat
business from general contractors such as Hathaway
Dinwiddie, which has used the firm for about 30% of
its building projects in Southern California since 1985,
says Steve Smith, senior vice president in Hathaway
Dinwiddie’s Los Angeles office.
For example, on the recently completed 450,000-sqft Cedars-Sinai Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion,
ACCO installed 1.1 million lb of sheet metal for Hathaway Dinwiddie, including 200,000 lb of complex roof
duct, with sections as large as 264 in. by 78 in. Smith
says ACCO has a “large capacity for ... major projects
and the resources to bring to bear on almost any type of
mechanical system.”
Prefabrication and jobsite technology, such as the
Trimble system, have enabled ACCO to boost productivity on complicated jobs like Cedars-Sinai. Starting
with the BIM model, ACCO developed a sectioning
Long History Ira Prentiss Fulmor (right) founded ACCO,
known then as the Air Conditioning Co., in 1934.
top
SPECIALTY
CONTRACTOR
ranking
ACCO
engineered
systems
No.
2
“ACCO is
among the
best organized
subcontractors
that we’ve
worked with.
—Bob Aylesworth,
Hunt Construction
Group
Early Start
Air Circulation
Rooftop exhaust
plenums remove
400,000 cu ft of
air per minute
from laboratories,
vivariums,
procedural rooms
and medical
spaces within
the CedarsSinai Advanced
Health Sciences
Pavilion.
plan for piping and ductwork and sent the details to
its fabrication shop for assembly. Sections up to 20 ft
were brought to the jobsite and installed immediately,
making the whole operation efficient, says Ron Falasca, ACCO senior vice president and project executive.
The congested Levi’s Stadium site and complex sequencing of the various trades required multiple daily
deliveries of prefabricated sections as heavy as 20,000
lb and up to 30 ft long. “The limited site lay-down
space and speed of construction required that we take
our just-in-time delivery of pre-assembled duct and
pipe to new levels,” says Leonard Bertolami, ACCO senior vice president.
Along with its engineering and construction work,
renewable services contracts have been a strong contributor to revenue, accounting for 25% to 30% of the
company’s total and posting revenue gains in 23 of the
past 25 years, Westphal says. “We’ve got quite a track
record of consistency and predictability,” he adds.
Sustainable Expertise
An important component of efficient mechanical design is having a wide range of system sizes for each project. That was a key factor in the Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s net-zero energy use East Campus
Operations Center, says Dave Anderson, ACCO senior
vice president. Brought on the IPD project in its earliest
pre-design phase, ACCO used a wide variety of cooling
and heating components for the six-building campus,
including active chilled beams, a geothermal exchange
field, thermal storage tanks, a 180-ton chiller plant and
evaporative cooling.
Many of these components are familiar in the industry, but Anderson says the variety and system architecture—such as using radiant heating in overhead ceiling
slabs—made the project stand out. He adds, “We are
using conventional products in unconventional ways.”
ACCO also uses “right-sizing” in other areas. For instance, it has been more accurately matching its truck
fleet to actual usage and requirements to boost fuel efficiency and trim costs. Electric charging stations with
free power, shuttle buses to transit stations and other
efforts help recruit employees concerned about the environment, Westphal says.
As ACCO expands, it seeks to remain flexible enough
to tackle a variety of markets. “Being nimble is not usually associated with large [companies],” Narbonne
says. “However, it is the depth and wide range of talent
that allows us to quickly meet the challenges.” n
Excerpted from Engineering News-Record, October 7, 2013, copyright by McGraw Hill Financial with all rights reserved.
This reprint implies no endorsement, either tacit or expressed, of any company, product, service or investment opportunity.
#C22926 Managed by The YGS Group, 800.290.5460. For more information visit www.theYGSgroup.com/content.
Photos Courtesy of ACCO
From Day 1,
ACCO was part
of the integrated
project delivery
team for the
net-zero energy
use operations
center for the
Sacramento
Municipal Utility
District, working
from early
stages of energy
modeling through
the project’s
completion.