Sara Lee, known for their pies and baked goods, has a bakery plant located in Traverse City. When the factory needed a new recipe for their floors, Team Elmer’s provided the main ingredients: floor cutting with fugitive dust control and ready mix concrete.

Our biggest challenge was the job schedule. Sara Lee shut the plant down for one week so we could complete this work. Sara Lee had their cleaning and sanitizing crew coming in the morning of July 8, so the job had to be completed by the night of July 7.

We hit the ground running. First, our team installed visquene and tented off the work areas to keep contamination from getting into food preparation areas. We cut 3,600 square feet of warehouse floor and diced it up into 3 ft by 3 ft pieces. Then, we cut 100 linear feet of 3 ft wide trench. The trench ran right down the middle of the equipment in the pie production room. There was little room to work, and Team Elmer’s maneuvered the confined space to get the job done.

After Team Elmer’s removed all of the old concrete, Hurst Mechanical came in and installed floor drains in the areas that we removed. Then, Team Elmer’s came back in and regraded, compacted and prepared for new concrete. Our pump truck pumped in, and Sunrite Construction finished approximately 60 yards of new concrete. Finally, we cleaned up the site and removed all of the visquene tenting.

Voilà! We were ready on time and baking began on schedule!

Timing: Started July 1, 2011, 8:00 a.m. – Completed July 7, 2011, 8:00 p.m.
Partners: Sunrite Construction, Inc. (concrete contractor)