Welcome to the first blog in our new continuing series entitled Lewis Bass’s Recent Project Interviews.

This series will offer an inside look into recently completed projects in which we played a key role.

In many of our projects, Lewis Bass is brought on as a sub-contractor to a construction firm or other type of general contractor in the course of their providing services to a client.

This blog series will cover these types of projects that see Lewis Bass involved in providing end-stage machine evaluation services to companies seeking to close out their building permit quickly and return to work.

Topics to be covered will include:

1. Lessons that were learned in the course of the project.
2. Our client’s viewpoints on us as a service provider via an informal Q&A.
3. Specific scenarios we encountered that give a deeper insight into our industry.

This week’s project interview features Duplan Construction

For our first blog in this series, we interviewed Dave Powell, a project manager from Duplan Construction, Inc. located in Campbell, California.

Lewis Bass was contacted by Dave near the end of Q3 in 2020 to evaluate unlisted tools being moved to a new facility they were constructing for a commercial client in San Jose, CA.

Dave’s team at Duplan provided us with a tool matrix spreadsheet, which is a list of machines (tools) that have been flagged on the job site as not having your typical NRTL marking, only a CE Marking (not valid in North America), and for machines that are considered custom builds (often missing required nameplates).

Lewis Bass was able to setup a pre-inspection walk-through with Dave and his team within a week of initial contact, to personally identify and check each flagged machine in the tool matrix for the possibility of evaluation, and was able to identify six tools that would be requiring 3rd party field labeling/UL evaluation.

It must be noted that during the course of this project, originally 9 tools were flagged by Lewis Bass for possible city-mandated evaluation, due to a lack of documentation for the previous company’s inspection stickers found on 3 tools at the client’s facility.

After a back and forth between Duplan and the client, we were able to secure the documentation needed to clear these machines from our list to allow them safe passage to the new facility, but if the documentation had not been located in a timely manner ahead of the site move, three more field label evaluations would have been required at extra cost.

An informal Q&A with Dave Powell of Duplan Construction

Question: What has been your prior experience in your industry when using 3rd party electrical inspectors on your client’s projects?

Dave: We have had mixed experiences.  Some good, some bad.  Communication always seemed to be an issue with the bad ones.

Question: Why did you choose Lewis Bass as your 3rd party field label service provider on your most recent project?

Dave: Several of our PM’s have recently had good experiences with Lewis Bass, so it made it pretty easy for me to decide whom to use.

Question: Would you recommend LBIES to other companies? If so, what about us stands out compared to the competition?

Dave: Yes.  Professionalism, promptness, open lines of communication.

Question: Do you have any advice to offer companies in your industry that may run into unlisted equipment on their job sites?

Dave: Call Lewis Bass!

Now, let’s talk about Duplan Construction

According to Duplan’s website, they have been in the construction business in the Bay Area since 1979, and per their own words:

[Duplan Construction] provides quality construction services for commercial and industrial buildings in Campbell, CA and the surrounding areas. Through the years, our construction company has had the pleasure of working on a variety of projects, including restaurants, retail stores, office complexes, and more. We make sure to involve ourselves in the entire construction process and find ways for our clients to save money.

Duplan Construction specializes in Industrial and Commercial work

Duplan Construction is experienced and capable of handling various types of construction projects: from commercial construction to industrial building needs. They have successfully completed various projects in Northern California and the Silicon Valley area.

Photos from work done by Duplan for an industrial client.

Thanks for reading series 1 of Lewis Bass’s recent project interviews!

To summarize what went well with this project let’s cover what we learned:

1) It is very important to maintain/source all relevant manuals and associated documentation for your client’s machinery ahead of any planned company move or relocation of both known unlisted and potentially unlisted machinery.

2) Providing an unlisted tool matrix ahead of a pre-inspection walk-through helps 3rd party field evaluation bodies like Lewis Bass countless hours of saved time in manually inspecting machines one-by-one and gets your client’s machines inspected faster and quoted more accurately.