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Industrial Sector
edition 2 | Spring 2025
There’s More to Melloy Than Fast, Reliable Maintenance and Turnaround Services
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“Our clients are in the business of moving freight such as mined minerals, food products, and building materials that communities depend on. Our number one success metric is safely minimizing disruption to the train schedules, and we gear all of our operations toward that goal.”
Jim Holtje
Civil Area Manager, PCL Construction
One Controls Solution to Rule Them All
Market insight
Is it possible to marry decades of institutional memory with the processing power and convenience of today’s technology? Enter Baseplate, PCL’s bespoke project controls solution for modern industrial projects. Computers exist in large part to accomplish what the human brain cannot. Our memory is fickle. Our processing speed is limited. For years, the writing has been on the wall: Computers help us reach beyond our own capacity, and they can help us build better. PCL first incorporated digital software into its project management processes in the early 1990s, bringing efficiency to simple takeoff and progress database functions. Personal computers were proliferating throughout many industries, largely to streamline these basic operational functions. It was then that PCL began thinking in earnest about how it organizes and systematizes not only project data but also all the insight and experience that had brought the company success for decades. “We had built up a century of institutional knowledge that had been passed through people, and on paper that lived in file cabinets,” says Aaron Erickson, construction service manager. “We looked at the world changing and started asking how we could bring that knowledge to the forefront so it could help us work smarter with our clients.” Over the next three decades, a constant stream of technological advancements pushed the industry forward. The internet, email, computer-aided design, cloud computing and touch screens overtook pen, paper and the post office as the primary tools of the trade. As PCL’s industrial portfolio grew, so too did its digital toolset. PCL began developing custom software solutions that would engineer efficiencies into its processes. Before long, PCL’s arsenal of project management and controls applications grew to encompass the complete life cycle of a project, from budgeting and material controls to quality assurance and supply chain management — each reflecting pieces of that time-tested institutional knowledge and repeatedly refined processes and best practices. Today, PCL uses nearly three dozen proprietary applications on its industrial projects. Since 2013, this all-encompassing suite of programs has been formally enveloped under a single, interconnected framework now called Baseplate.
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Letting Automation Do the Heavy Lifting
Baseplate ingests documents across the construction process to output cost, schedule and quality optimizations.
St. Albert Trail to 97 Street segment of the Yellowhead Trail Freeway Conversion project in Edmonton.
A look of how Baseplate handles cost forecasting.
Baseplate allows PCL to access the projects vital information no matter your location.
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Alberta, CA
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OGE Sooner Units 1 & 2
Oklahoma , US
Ford Newby’s Passion for Technology Makes a Difference for PCL and the Community
Many words can describe Ford Newby: kind, big-hearted, generous, special. While these adjectives provide a glimpse into Newby and his personality, his colleagues will tell you these words are too small to capture the essence of his character. The PCL systems administrator has earned a reputation for going above and beyond.
Read more about how the young systems administrator has already earned a reputation for going above and beyond.
A Periodic Table of Construction Elements Today, Baseplate is the go-to informational hub for an industrial project at PCL. All facets of project data flow through Baseplate’s interconnected applications to provide efficiencies for costing, scheduling and quality while providing controlled, reliable and insightful reporting. Baseplate’s flexibility is perhaps its greatest asset. Depending on the size of the project or the client’s unique needs, it can be scaled up or down to deliver the right level of insight and information to project teams and clients as needed. Baseplate’s 35 applications are divided among eight domains: Document control Estimating and cost control Health, safety and environment Labor management Supply chain Work packaging and planning Quality Completions and turnover Data is shared across Baseplate’s applications and domains, eliminating multiple entry points and keeping information consistent as a single source of project knowledge. For example, within the Estimating and Cost Control domain, Baseplate extracts information contained within a piping isometric, then use proprietary algorithms to classify piping components and perform labor takeoffs automatically, resulting in significant takeoff speed and accuracy improvements over traditional methods. Data can be extracted from various popular modeling applications and formats early in the design process to generate front-end technical queries that draw clarifications before construction begins, rather than during execution.
Elsewhere, the Document Control domain manages document data and metadata to instantaneously push information throughout Baseplate and to personnel who need to be informed of new or revised documents and holds. All engineering and technical information required for a project is stored in this domain, which works closely with work packaging and planning, completion and turnover, and quality domains to create a unified reference point easily accessible to a variety of project roles. “It’s important for users to be able to edit and save a centralized document in real time, as if they were working with it from their hard drive,” says Erickson. “With tens of thousands of drawings per project, and with dozens of people working on these drawings, we’ve sped up that process, reduced lag and significantly reduced document duplication.” As technology continues its eternal evolution and as PCL integrates Baseplate into each new industrial project, PCL continues to collect data and engineer new systems and structures that take advantage of common processes and properties between applications. Baseplate’s universality and interconnectivity has positioned it as a kind of periodic table of construction elements — a synthesized source of truth for all project information. The Fourth Industrial Revolution We are currently living through what many refer to as the fourth Industrial Revolution. The first Industrial Revolution was about mechanization. The second, electrification and mass production. The third brought us into a much more familiar present — one that thrives on digitization and automation. But the world continues to change rapidly, and the fourth Industrial Revolution promises a future in which ubiquitous connectivity, holistic thinking and highly refined systems will vastly expand the limits of our brainpower, both human and artificial. In recent years, the engineers and developers behind Baseplate have focused their efforts on extending access to Baseplate so it can be used just as effectively in the field as it is used on PCL’s office desktops. This is no small feat, given that many of today’s construction applications are optimized for desktop computers and big screens. But, with the near ubiquity of powerful mobile phones and tablets and ever-greater access to high-speed internet, Baseplate has found itself increasingly comfortable sitting in one’s pocket or tucked under their arm as they, for example, go on a tour of their latest industrial project. “It shouldn’t matter if you’re in the office, on an airplane or out on the job site,” Erickson says. “If you’re part of a project, you should have access to information and interaction with that information at your fingertips.”
In late 2022, PCL celebrated the formal launch of Baseplate 2.0, signaling a more holistic approach to project management and the start of a new chapter in how the company relates to its industrial projects and clients. With 2.0, many core applications are now web-based and feature responsive design, significantly improved file storage, and customized permissions and notifications to ensure the right information ends up in the right hands. For the construction industry, the great promise of the so-called fourth Industrial Revolution is not so much in the increased automation, or the potential of augmented reality, or even the vast amounts of data it can now collect and analyze to make more informed and accurate decisions. It’s that the industry may have finally reached a point where its concurrent processes of discovery, learning and productivity have achieved such symmetry that building better is not only possible but inevitable. It may have taken PCL more than a century to get here, but in Erickson’s eyes, the company’s past is going to be every bit as critical to its success as the improvements it makes moving forward. “Every project is different, but at this point we’ve seen nearly everything,” Erickson says. “We’ve completed hundreds of industrial projects and they have all given us valuable insight that we can apply to any project that follows them. “It has given us the confidence to look ahead toward challenges that we aren’t even aware of and know that we have the tools to overcome them.”
Industrial sector
We have a small company feel with big company backing “The Melloy office runs lean and most employees are out on project sites, which gives the group a small-company feel,” says Soetaert. “And that is a benefit for clients – as is the fact that Melloy is backed by the experience and resources of PCL.” Under the PCL Industrial umbrella are five companies that work together to plan and execute a complete scope of work and manage a plant’s full life cycle. “This one-contractor model means we can offer clients a variety of services and keep overhead costs down,” says Rose. Another perk of being part of PCL is Melloy’s access to PCL’s multiple in-house facilities, which include a modular assembly yard and fabrication facilities in both Canada and the United States. These facilities provide third-party fabrication services and support PCL project sites. The facilities can fabricate, alter and repair complex piping, pressure vessels and exchangers of all sizes. “We work closely with the teams at these facilities and have streamlined companywide procedures and policies that work hand in hand across the companies,” says Rose. “The facilities are flexible and can manage projects regardless of size or capacity. No matter the scope or complexity of a project, we have the resources to do it.” We care more because we’re owners There’s pride in ownership, and PCL is employee-owned. “We’re more invested in our productivity, quality and reputation because we’re owners,” says Soetaert. To bring this ownership pride to every project, Melloy employs full-time staff superintendents. They are fully immersed in PCL’s corporate culture, which helps them build rapport with Melloy’s clients and be reliable, consistently available company representatives. “Employee ownership ensures our culture is carried beyond our offices and onto our projects,” says Rose. “Strong relationships and clear expectations between our project teams, clients and labor providers position us to complete any size of project while meeting our client’s expectations on safety, quality, schedule and cost.”
Peter Tawfik and Louie Shoukas next to a graphite block at the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation office.
A rendering of what a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) nuclear power plant could look like in a more urban area.
Shutting down operating plants costs clients product and money. Although clients anticipate stopping production for repairs and upgrades throughout a plant’s life cycle, they want minimal downtime. So, they need a fast and reliable construction partner to help them. Melloy is a trusted service provider specializing in turnarounds, maintenance, capital projects and pressure vessel fabrication. Team members Mitch Soetaert, district manager, and Allan Rose, business development manager, know what it takes to be successful in this market: speed, reliability and value-added services.
We want to talk about it Many plants that Melloy works on are more than 50 years old. “We ask clients to share their plant’s whole story with us – history, operational concerns and drivers,” says Soetaert. Once they gather as much information as possible about the project, the team brings their expertise from past projects and then provides feedback that contributes to the project’s success and positively affects the plant’s life cycle. Rose adds that “understanding what success looks like to clients is key to building strong, long-lasting relationships.”
edition 2 | SPRING 2025
PCL developed the HeviLift suite of programs to bridge the gap between limited human processing power and that of today’s computers. Refined over the course of nearly two decades, HeviLift has become a staple on PCL industrial projects, valued for its ability to create more efficient schedules while lowering costs. “HeviLift was driven by our desire to optimize the cranes used on a job site, first because the rental costs are so expensive,” says Travis Zubick, assistant manager of construction engineering for PCL Industrial. “It also minimizes the amount we’re moving these cranes around the job site, which reduces disruption and ground preparation, all of which create huge costs for the client.” Intelligent Components Working in Tandem At crane selection, HeviLift dives into its extensive database and analyzes detailed specifications on an industry-wide inventory of crane equipment. The program runs numerous lift cases to identify the optimal equipment based on the intended loads and site conditions such as ground elevations, boundaries, and laydown areas.
HeviLift analyzes every location on the work area and shows the optimal crane locations.
How HeviLift works and its core components.
Crane lift planning comes with enough configurations, locations and sequences to boggle the mind. PCL's HeviLift software leaves the heavy lifting to algorithms and automation. Efficient front-end planning of costly equipment and labor is the backbone of the industrial project schedule. Traditionally, heavy lift planning is done in the preconstruction phase. Lift engineers organize disparate details — weights, dimensions, positions, locations, available person power — into a coordinated lift sequence largely built around the project’s most critical lifts. In doing so, sequencing is more manageable to the engineer who, despite extensive experience and refined intuition, cannot efficiently compute all possible options into an optimized plan.
With crane selection accomplished and site data established, HeviLift then computes optimal crane placements from thousands of possibilities. The program recognizes any potential complications that may arise due to boom clearance, tail swing, and nearby obstacles. HeviLift's sequencing tools make the program truly shine. Its algorithms effortlessly simulate thousands of possible lift sequences and assess cost and timing impacts of each. These figures, expressed alongside 3D modeling animations, provide owners with an unprecedented level of detail and insight to help visualize lift sequences and make informed decisions that impact budgets and timelines. Each HeviLift component can be used separately to help with lift planning. This scalability makes it an effective tool for simple or complex projects and on work sites of all shapes and sizes. A Holistic View HeviLift’s strengths lie in its ability to take a more global look at a construction project, with impacts that go far beyond the lifts. “We’re looking with a view to how construction progresses past the lifts and into detailed piping, mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, insulation, and commissioning scopes,” Zubick says. “How can we make this plan most efficient to provide the greatest impact to the full construction lifecycle, not just the heavy lifting? With the help of automation, HeviLift creates in minutes what would otherwise require innumerable hours for a lift engineer. When used in conjunction with PCL’s Lift Frame, schedule durations can be shortened by as much as 35% compared to traditional lift planning approaches. This approach to planning can reduce the construction timeline by several months, especially if applied early in the process when it’s easier to anticipate and implement cost-cutting or time-saving alterations. It’s a win-win for both PCL and its clients, and more evidence of PCL’s place as an innovator and solutions provider intent on saving time, energy, and costs on the jobsite.
