Business View Magazine | June 2019

113 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JUNE 2019 ground construction. Phillips notes, “We’ve done work in chemical facilities, had some significant biofuels projects, also recent work in water and wastewater applications for municipalities. In those cases, we’ve been a sub-contractor to general contractors. We did some digester covers for City of Reading, Pennsylvania, and we have a similar municipal project coming up in Georgia. It’s steel plate construction work and that’s our niche. We don’t do the manufacturing, we don’t shop fabricate, we utilize sub-vendors to supply the materials for the projects.” Most projects are anything but run-of-the-mill; for example: a bio-oxidizer at a Weyerhaeuser OSB (oriented strand board) plant in West Virginia. A Pittsburgh company approached Phillips Tank & Structure with plans for an emissions device that uses biological organisms to clean a waste stream of vapor from the plant. They wanted performance specifications, so PTS structurally designed, then had manufactured and fabricated this “tank with a stack on top” that used biological organisms in water to filter out hydrocarbons, etc. from a waste PHI LL I PS TANK & STRUCTURE stream of air coming off the manufacturing facility. Using 3D design and engineering capabilities, they designed a structure to meet the geometry required, completed the project, and it’s been running successfully for a couple years. The challenge for an engineering company is that different places have different climates and seismic issues. The west coast has to design for seismic events; Gulf coast and east coast for wind loading from hurricanes. In the north, it’s snow loads. All these factors, and more, must be considered. “What differs most from job to job is our customers,” says Phillips. “They are ever- challenging. Not any two projects are alike; they’re all custom.” On the logistics side, PTS has a procurement group that utilizes steel service centers and fabricators, and supplies all the parts and pieces – gaskets, bolts, instrumentation. According to Phillips, “We’re, ideally, sourcing them from places local to the site to minimize freight, but we also broker our own freight to try to control the