Michelin

The new Michelin North America distribution center is located at the intersection of State 101 and State 417 in Spartanburg County and consists of 5 buildings containing passenger and truck tires, as well as tires for agricultural equipment. Lithko’s scope on the 5 precast buildings consisted of footings, paving, and slab, including high tolerances. Some areas required a tolerance level of Ff 50 / Fl 30, which our team exceeded on some floors.

Once our team completed phase 1, Michelin started live operations in the first two buildings, creating many challenges. Our paving area was also the access road for the live buildings. Due to unforeseen issues with the earthwork, we could not build in a sequential pattern. We went back and forth on buildings 3, 4, and 5, requiring constant movement of manpower and materials.  This is where our planning processes were extremely crucial to the success of the project.

The project spanned out over three years. Enduring project schedules can produce many obstacles, but our team was able to anticipate and overcome each obstacle. Along with dealing with the typical seasonal weather construction issues, we also had to handle the increase in cost of steel.  Steel prices heightened about halfway through the project and the cost was significantly higher than what we priced out in our proposal. We were able to mitigate this, by planning out all the rebar deliveries to ensure we received the rebar before the cost increase took effect. This required extremely detailed coordination for receiving and staging of the materials. Lastly, we were able to keep the majority of the project team on this job from start to finish including the Project Lead. It was important to maintain the same lineup due to the constant planning and re-planning that was required to keep up with all the intricacies that can occur during a multi-year project, which contributed to the overall success of the project.