[TheForge] concrete over the border

[Ries Niemi]

I read that article about the Salt Lake City library recently somewhere 
else, and it was pretty interesting.
But there are a couple of factors here not mentioned in that article. 
The mexican concrete industry is actually the most sophisitcated in the 
entire world. They have GPS transponders on their trucks, real time 
dispatchers in radio control with all their trucks at any time, and 
they have a better on time delivery rate than we do here. They have 
better, more modern batch plants, and are doing a better job at 
concrete than just about anyone in the US. This is partly because until 
recently there was NO concrete delivery in most of Mexico- everyone 
just bought sacks of cement and mixed their own by the bag. So they 
started from scratch in the early 80's, but the big Mexican Cement 
company now owns cement companies all over the world, including  in the 
US. They were willing to spend the money to go the latest tech, and do 
things in the best way, and almost no american companies are. My 
experience with american concrete delivery has been it is like the 
phone company- you know- "we dont care, we dont have to."  In fact, 
most american companies arent even aware anything has changed since the 
invention of the concrete truck, in about 1920. I am pretty sure they 
are sending wet concrete over the border to american jobsites in texas 
and california.
The other thing is that I have worked on several really large projects- 
a 100 million dollar library, a baseball stadium, a subway- and in 
every case, the quality of the (american) concrete work sucked. In my 
town recently they had to repour two huge bridge support pilings due to 
crummy concrete work. I am sure there are individuals who are good 
craftsmen, but the institutional nature of big concrete contractors 
makes for low quality work. They low bid the job, then file lots of 
change orders to make a profit, and use lots of caulk.
So it makes sense to prefab these panels in a factory, where you can 
have good quality control. Its just a shame that factory has to be in 
Mexico.

ries