DENVER, CO--(Marketwired - Nov 15, 2016) - For Uline, North America's largest distributor of shipping and industrial packaging materials, efficiency is the result of carefully considered, tested, and refined operations involving a complex web of interconnected people, parts, and processes. Established in 1980, and still a family-owned business, today Uline supplies more than 31,000 packaging, cleaning, industrial and general use materials.
"Operational excellence is how we do business, from the way we start our day to how we make decisions on the design and construction of our buildings," shares Randy Copenharve, Uline's Director of Facilities and Construction. Copenharve recently oversaw construction of a new 1,000,000 sf distribution center at Uline's Wisconsin Headquarters. One key decision on such a large, open floor plan facility was thermal insulation to guard against Wisconsin's dramatic annual temperature swings. With summer temperatures reaching into the 90's and as low minus 40 in the winter, cost-effectively maintaining Uline's desired working conditions in such a large building relies on premium quality insulation.
"ACH Foam Technologies is one of our customers and we investigated their rigid foam insulation for durability, first-term vs long-term costs, and lifetime R-Value," continues Copenharve. "We wanted materials that could be installed correctly once and not have to revisit the roof for a long time." Copenharve notes that ACH Foam Technologies' Foam-Control PLUS+® and Foam-Control® roof insulation provides a fully warrantied R-value that maintains its effectiveness for 50 years. While other types of insulations may claim higher initial R-values for their products, 3rd party testing has shown that off-gassing occurs over time and reduces the products' effectiveness. Specifically, polyisocyanurate manufacturers who utilize long-term thermal resistance (LTTR), a weighted average R-value of their product designated over a period of time.
With high performance expectations established, the task of installing more than 1,000,000 square feet of roofing fell to SRS Roofing and Sheet Metal of Waterford, WI. For the SRS team, streamlining efficiency came down to a matter of logistics. Determining the right amount of insulation to keep crews moving as quickly as possible was a challenge because there wasn't room to have a large volume of material stored on site. Fortunately for SRS, ACH Foam Technologies was able to coordinate a steady flow of insulation to the site with a just-in-time delivery process from two separate locations, in Fond du Lac, WI and Washington, Iowa.
