Cutting it in connecticut

Now in its third generation of family ownership, Arrow Concrete Products Inc. continues its investment in the future.

By Ron Hyink

Kurt and Ron Burkhart have no real need to count the needles on a pine tree growing on a hilltop a mile away. But they could if they wanted to – and from the comfort of their own offices. It’s not because they possess some sort of extrasensory power, but rather it’s the product of modern gadgetry the two brothers built into their new precast plant in Granby, Conn.

One of the 20-some-odd cameras located in and around the plant peers out over the yard with a perpetually vigilant eye, and it can be controlled to pan, zoom in and zoom out with the touch of a computer keyboard. It’s part of a high-tech surveillance system that accommodates an entire lineup of sophisticated equipment at Arrow Concrete Products Inc. that will ensure the new plant serves the company’s needs at least 25 years into the future.

Eagle eye
With that one extraordinary camera scanning the yard, the Burkharts can spot a particular product, watch a truck roll in, see what it’s loading and, yes, if they really felt the urge, zoom way in on that faraway hilltop to count pine needles. “You can read a license plate in the farthest corner of the 32 acres,” said Kurt.

The other cameras around the plant aren’t quite as versatile as the one watching out over the yard, but together they provide an excellent view of what’s going on around the plant at any given moment, 24/7. And by storing the data indefinitely, the Burkharts can go back to a specific date and view any occurrence.

“We can use it for training, we can use if for quality control,” said Kurt. And in the unthinkable event of an accident, they could use it for investigation purposes. “It could have many benefits. We can get an overall view of what’s happening on the shop floor to increase productivity. I think that’ll be a big payoff down the road.”

The Burkharts have yet to use the security system to its fullest advantage, mainly because they’re still tuning in to its capabilities. But they do envision great things for, say, a dispatcher who can see everything happening in the yard and can provide direction for the truck drivers right from the office.
But Kurt is a fair man, and he is sensitive to employees who might feel “big brother” lurking over their shoulders and watching their every move. So he told his workers exactly where the cameras are – and aren’t – pointed. If they should ever want a little privacy where the boss isn’t watching, such as having lunch, they know where to go.

“The camera system usually fascinates just about anybody who comes through,” said Kurt. “I haven’t been in any other plants that were this extensive for cameras.”

Investing in the future
But the surveillance system is just an appetizer for the other high-tech gear that promises to give Arrow an upward trajectory into the future. For the Burkharts, getting the best of everything they possibly could for the new plant made a lot of sense. “The investment was big, but we’re building for the future,” said Kurt. “We’re not building for the immediate, we’re projecting out there as far as we can get.”

Besides, Ron added, retrofitting the plant later would have been much more difficult. “Either do it now or you’re never going to do it,” he said.

Jen Burkhart, Kurt’s daughter, explained that they had done extensive research by visiting other precasters and visiting with many people who had experience setting up such systems. “People were very happy once they had made the investment and set it up,” she said. That made some of the tough decisions a little easier as far as what they should install.

Even the office space was taken into consideration for future growth, as evidenced by the new two-story office building. The entire upstairs consists of several empty offices save for the conference table and some chairs, but they will surely be used as company growth continues.

Building the new plant and offices was as much a part of projecting company growth as it was giving the third generation of Burkharts solid footing for the future. Kurt and Ron, Arrow’s president and vice president, respectively, represent the second generation of company ownership (see sidebar “A Block Foundation”), and the offices are already filling with the third generation. Jen and Ron Jr., Ron’s son, were first, followed by Jen’s sister Susan. The most recent family member to join the company is Katherine Burkhart, another of Jen’s sisters.

All-new plant
After the fascination subsides somewhat over the surveillance system, a tour of the plant begins with cement deliveries. Outside along the building are four new cement silos – two for dry-cast, one for cement and one for fly ash. “One has a split cement silo, so we can use two types of cement plus the fly ash,” explained Kurt. Each of the silos is connected to a filtration system mounted on the ground rather than up on the silos. “So service is right there on the ground – nobody’s climbing up to service it.”

Inside the plant is a row of five large aggregate bins. Delivery trucks back up to a bay door to dump their loads over a grated area inside the plant. Beneath the flooring, a conveyer catches the fallout from the delivery area and carries it high overhead, where the load falls onto a short conveyer that shuttles back and forth to deposit the aggregate in the appropriate bin. Once the delivery truck unloads, all one has to do is select the aggregate size, and everything else is handled automatically, including shutoff.

Storing the aggregate inside is a bonus for the Connecticut precasters. “That was a biggie for us. We don’t have a problem with contaminated material sitting outside,” said Kurt.
When scouting for ideas on what equipment the new plant should have, the Burkharts paid particular attention to wet-cast versus dry-cast operations. They observed that many plants with dual operations shared a single batch plant. “There seemed to be a battle going on between them,” recalled Kurt.
“So we put in a plant with a dedicated dry-cast mixer and a dedicated wet-cast mixer.” In fact, the plant was built around the dual setup.

Inside a glassed-in room on the production floor resides the nerve center of both batch plants. This electronic brain controls the incoming materials and the mixers, and contains hundreds of batch recipes for any need. When the crane operator needs a bucket of wet-cast, he merely punches a button on a remote control unit riding on his belt. “By the time he gets back to the mixer, his concrete is waiting for him,” said Kurt. The cranes are operated by remote control as well, so there are no dangling cables.

But the dry-cast side is even more remarkable. “The dry-cast operation is the spotlight of the plant, the Pedershaab XL2500,” said Kurt. “This is just the fourth one in the country.”
Watching the totally automated dry-cast machinery is something akin to watching a ballet dancer. It spins and twirls as it places precise amounts of dry-cast mix into the form without spilling a drop, then out comes a beautifully manicured product. The entire cycle, from pouring to stripping, takes only a few minutes.

The plant also includes a new 1 million BTU gas water heater that circulates water through a 5,000-gallon underground concrete tank for those harsh New England winters. “We can put in the amount of water in that tank that we are going to require for the day, and use from that tank,” said Kurt.

The wet-cast mixer is set up for recycled water, so wash water goes into a pit, which is then routed back into the mixer. “We’re trying to eliminate any waste from leaving the shop,” said Kurt. Once the shop is set up according to plan, the coring slurry also will be recycled back into the mixer. Currently forklifts carry in product requiring coring into the coring area, but that will change as soon as a new crane can be installed. “Productivity will double in the coring area.”

Years of careful management and steady growth have necessitated the future planning. “We grew a little – in spurts – and outgrew the old building, and then we added another section on,” said Ron. “We outgrew that probably 20 years ago.”

Kurt explained that as the old plant became too small and outdated, they could have sold out. “We probably could have bought a place in the islands, but instead we invested in the future – because we feel that’s where it’s at.”

SIDEBAR 2
A Block Foundation

Carl and Bertha Burkhart knew nothing about concrete when they started making block part-time in a rented garage near Granby, Conn. People were building on the outer fringes of Hartford in those days during the early 1950s, most of them using block foundations, so making concrete block seemed like a good idea at the time.

From the beginning, Arrow Block Co. was a family enterprise. Bertha worked in the office while still raising the family, and continues to serve as secretary. Sons Kurt and Ron worked part-time doing whatever they could while still attending school. “My father worked during the daytime in the factories, and then on weekends and nights we’d come out to Granby and make concrete blocks,” said Kurt.

The younger Burkharts, teens at the time, would carry the heavy cement bags, then take them away to be burned after emptying them into a Sears & Roebuck mixer. With a full mixer load that barely filled the wheelbarrow, they shoveled the concrete into the forms. “A big press head came down and pressed the block, then you’d take the block out and set it to dry and make another block,” said Kurt.

The same old truck that delivered the block also hauled in the cement and aggregate. “But there weren’t a lot of blocks made,” explained Ron. “It takes a long time. So how much material do you need?” he joked.

“We used to pick up cement down at the railroad station,” said Kurt, adding that the railroad station was in the next town over. The cement bags were stacked just five high to keep the rail car from being top heavy, so the bags had to be hefted off the floor and carried to the truck. “The cars always seemed to come in on the hottest day of the year,” he said.

“They would give you like three days to get them unloaded before they took off,” added Ron. “They gave you a timeframe, and that’s all you got.” And with their truck, several trips were necessary.

Of course it was hard work, and the block sold for just 9 to 12 cents apiece. But Arrow Block Co. did prosper.

The plant’s current location traces its roots to 1953, a couple of years after Carl first got into the block business. That was the year he moved his family out of the city to settle in Granby and began operating the block business full-time. The house he built still stands on company property.

As the ’50s marched on, the company expanded into septic tank installation, but that was short-lived as the Burkharts later became manufacturers of septic tanks and dropped the installation business. Now they were truly in the concrete manufacturing business, so they changed the company name to Arrow Concrete Products. By 1969, it had become incorporated.

Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, more concrete products were added to the list of company offerings, but it was slow going. “It takes a lot to start from nothing and to try to get into any type of growth,” said Kurt, who chairs NPCA’s Sanitary & Stormwater product section and formerly served as president of the Northeast Concrete Products Association. “It wasn’t until later years that we could see some substantial growth in the company, to progress.”

When growth finally came, it came in a big way. In 1997, the Burkharts picked up a family-owned precast plant in Milford, in the western part of the state, and in 2000 they picked up another family-owned plant in Norwich, in the eastern part of the state. With that triad, they not only have all of Connecticut covered, but can service the surrounding states as well: Rhode Island, most of Massachusetts, and parts of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.

“We can pick the plant where it’s most efficient for us to make the product,” said Jen Burkhart, Kurt’s daughter. “There were products we could not make here that we could make very efficiently in Milford, but they are more efficient for us to get them here and truck them out of here. That made a big difference for us.”

Acquiring the second and third plants is evidence of the company’s success and growth – evidence punctuated by the totally new plant at Granby, which continues its role as corporate headquarters.

Kurt would agree that the company never would have made it this far without the solid framework created by Carl and Bertha. “It just takes so long to get any capital built up to expand a business. It’s very difficult,” he said. “But this happened because of what they did in the beginning – they laid a good foundation of a solid business.”