HEB Refrigerated Display Cases
Grocery
The Project
HEB’s Construction Management Group secured requested capital funding for refrigeration replacement, but the funds came with a catch – if the projects could not be completed in a six-month timeframe, the capital funding allocated would have to be forfeited. HEB but did not have enough internal resources to manage the case replacements in this short timeframe, so they turned to QPM.
QPM was asked to provide outsourced Construction Project Management services, to supplement HEB’s internal staff, and complete the necessary refrigeration upgrades in Texas.
The projects assigned to QPM were particularly challenging because all installation work had to be completed after hours, and in time for store personnel to have adequate time to restock and re-merchandise the affected walk-ins or refrigerated freezers or cases.
The QPM Solution
QPM immediately provided an account manager in the Texas market to begin working with HEB’s internal staff on determining project workload and scope. QPM was then assigned multiple grocery store locations that included either the repair or replacement of refrigerated equipment such as:
- Refrigeration Equipment
- Produce Cases Dairy Reach-Ins
- Meat Cases Seafood Cases
- Grocery Freezer Walk-Ins Dairy Walk-Ins
- Bakery Walk-In Freezers Ice Cream Freezers
- Compressors Condensers
- Coil Systems Refrigeration Lines
QPM worked closely with HEB’s Engineering Consultant who performed the site evaluations to determine exactly what refrigeration equipment needed to be repaired or replaced. When the evaluations were completed, QPM provided additional feedback to HEB staff on the equipment recommendations and assisted in finalizing each store’s exact scope of work.
Once the exact scope of work was determined, QPM was responsible for preparing the bid packages and managing the bid process for HEB. Based on our experience with grocery project management and equipment costing, QPM was able to provide expert insight into the pricing received from the contractors and alert HEB, when pricing for the scope was too high. In several cases, QPM actually re-bid the work and/or negotiated lower costs for HEB.
Once the scope and bids were finalized, QPM prepared the necessary schedules to complete the work in the timeframe HEB requested – only at night (9:00PM to 6:00AM) – and work was to begin on Saturday and be fully completed the following Sunday. To meet this timeframe, QPM developed two separate scheduling protocols (1) for the freezer projects and (1) for the cooler projects, which had to take into consideration items such as the thawing process for the freezer equipment, removal and replacement of frozen or cooled food items, the special needs of the concrete curves being utilized in the walk-ins and the process of bringing the freezers down to the correct temperatures.
QPM held an on-site, pre-construction meeting with HEB store personnel to review the scope of work, schedule and most importantly, the removal and replacing of refrigerated or frozen produce into the refrigerated storage trucks. HEB’s Store Director was responsible for coordinating the refrigerated truck for food storage, as well as removal and replacement of all food items, during and after the project.
During the projects, the QPM Project Manager worked closely with the HEB’s Operations Team, Store Director, Engineer Consultant, Procurement Group, equipment vendors and contractors on:
- Permitting
- Coordination of local inspections
- Cost estimating
- Scheduling
- General contractor bidding, review and negotiations
- Pre-bid meetings
- Store equipment orders and timing
- Change order review
- Punchwalk and Closeout
- Final reporting with site photos
The Results
During the six-month period, QPM’s Project Manager successfully managed and completed the repair or replacement of over (15) coolers or freezers, (15) condensing units, (10) roof top condensing units, over (48) linear feet of dairy cases, (12) linear feet of cooler end caps, as well as (54) linear feet of produce cases with project values from $150K to $350K.
QPM’s Project Manager brought the proper oversight and consistency needed to manage HEB’s Refrigeration Program and insure the capital funding allocated was utilized and not forfeited for these Texas locations.
Utilizing QPM offered HEB the additional resources it needed -- on very short notice, and for only a short duration of time -- to ensure the projects were completed by fiscal year end.
