Construction Business Review

The Superior Group
Overcoming Industry-Wide Challenges with Innovation and Experience

Leo Poupart, VP of Construction Process and Innovation, The Superior GroupLeo Poupart, VP of Construction Process and Innovation
In the construction industry, manpower is everything. And unfortunately, after the Great Recession of 2008, many organizations in the US and Europe lost a significant portion of their employees as over 60 percent of them did not return to work. The fact that skilled labor or prior experience in the field became a prerequisite further restricted new applicants to get employed. The demand in the market currently seems to exceed the availability of manpower. For an industry that is steadily picking up the pace in its digital transformation, the challenge is ironically more manual than expected. The deficit of skilled manpower is hindering the development of infrastructure for public and private organizations alike. There are several construction megaprojects to complete but the lack of workers has created a gap that quickly needs to be filled. To that end, The Superior Group, a leading electrical construction solutions and services company, steps forward to provide much-needed assistance to organizations looking to build and maintain critical facilities.

With a legacy that started in 1925, The Superior Group focuses on delivering comprehensive electrical and technology services for construction, prefabricated and modular systems, facility design, and maintenance. “The company maintains experienced in-house engineering teams to help clients design new projects with the highest level of efficiency,” adds Leo Poupart, VP of construction process and innovation at The Superior Group.

The company utilizes advanced construction delivery strategies developed over decades to better serve their clients. “We have dedicated teams that are supported by just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing for off-site fabrication, to help eliminate a client’s challenges for on-site construction activities,” expresses Poupart. By bringing a project into a controlled environment, The Superior Group’s experts can easily manage all aspects pertaining to a company’s worker safety, material supply chain, inventory, and logistics functions as well. This provides clients a clearer understanding of how and when to start building their facilities in the most efficient and cost-effective manner.

With technologies like virtual construction and automation gaining continuous traction in the construction space, The Superior Group embraces cutting-edge tools to deliver speed, enhanced quality, and overall value to its clients.

To further elucidate the benefits of the company’s services, Poupart shares a story of a client who was required to complete a string of construction projects with a fast-approaching deadline.

“The work needed to be quick and effective,” he recalls. The company employed its virtual construction and off-site fabrication services to plan and expedite onsite processes. After working in an agile manner, the client experienced that all the necessary materials and manpower to complete the projects in time were delivered well ahead of schedule and was thoroughly satisfied with The Superior Group’s teams. The overall result of the workflow being performed offsite lead to 15% labor reduction compared to the traditional stick built activity performed onsite. Even more advantageous, the installation was completed in 30% of the scheduled time. The solution proved to not only meet the tight deadline of the schedule, but also proved to be the continued approach for the remainder of the project to help alleviate the demand on the local workforce as well as gain additional overall float in the schedule’s critical path.

We have dedicated teams that are supported by just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing for off-site fabrication, to help eliminate a client’s challenges for on-site construction activities

Adopting manufacturing techniques and methodologies and applying them to the construction industry is one of the major components needed to change the efficiencies in construction. Controlling the capacity of constraints to meet demand by removing activities from the dependencies of a construction site allow for an alternate path that leads to reduced operating costs, reduced inventory of materials needed onsite, and an increase in throughput per capita of the offsite and onsite workforce. These are the principles guiding the organization as they navigate the opportunities ahead of them and the industry as a whole.

Owing to its longstanding heritage and dedicated workforce, the company today sits among the leaders of the construction industry in the US. The Superior Group today intends to expand on the products it currently offers and further develop its manufacturing capabilities. “We want to build standardized assemblies to improve our own supply chain and integrate the latest JIT methodologies to alleviate the challenges that our clients may face,” concludes Poupart.