All-Tex and Tyler Pipe team up for massive project
BY MARY JO MARTIN
Editorial director
One look at the new Cowboys Stadium leaves little doubt that “everything is bigger in Texas.” Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, had long dreamed about building a stadium that would be unlike any other in the National Football League.
That dream became a reality this summer, with the completion of the colossal new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. About the only thing this facility has in common with the former Texas Stadium is the opening in the roof so, as legend goes, God can watch His favorite team — although this one is mechanized to close on days when the weather isn’t favorable.
And when the Cowboys kicked off the 2009 football season, their fans at Texas-based All-Tex Pipe & Supply and Tyler Pipe took special pride in the role they had played during construction of the new 3-million-square-foot stadium.
“It was a great honor to be chosen to participate in this ginormous project,” said All-Tex president Jill Brock Hurd. “We worked on it a long time behind the scenes with TDIndustries, the mechanical contractor. In fact, the planning started five years before construction even got underway.
“We’ve been involved in a lot of large projects over the years. That past experience has helped us develop a coordinated effort with our manufacturers and our customers. Having partnered previously with TDIndustries on the Arizona Cardinals new stadium gave us the experience needed on this one, particularly because Cowboys Stadium is twice the size but at the same build schedule!”
Bill Bliss, national sales manager for Tyler Pipe, which supplied the cast iron pipe and couplings for the stadium through All-Tex, added, “Absolutely everyone in the company was excited to be a part of this project. Because of our long-time relationships with both All-Tex and TDIndustries, we were able to secure it. Both of them have been doing business with us for over 30 years, so they know what we can do and how we can service them. They know that no job is too big for us, which can be a concern with a high-profile job like this one, because they need to know without a doubt that they can get their pipe and fittings in a timely manner.”
Of course, a significant amount of coordination went into this project between All-Tex, Tyler Pipe and TDIndustries. Mike Coltharp, senior vice president-sales and a 34-year All-Tex veteran, shared some insight: “In a project like this, you can’t miss a beat because once you start falling behind it’s very difficult to ever catch up. We had meetings bi-weekly and talked daily with the engineering team, general contractor and mechanical contractor. In total, All-Tex made 2,811 deliveries to the jobsite, wrote orders that totaled 13,000 line items and supplied approximately 50 miles of pipe!”
They made as many as six deliveries a day to the jobsite — with an average of three — because of the logistical necessity to deliver smaller batches on smaller trucks.
Tyler Pipe regional manager Sterling Bowman noted that the foundry ran extra long shifts during much of the project: “To give you some perspective, in an entire year in the state of Texas, we sell roughly 12,000 to 15,000 tons of cast iron pipe. In this project alone, they used close to 5,000 tons. It was important that we meet the timelines required by All-Tex, because there was a precision involved as to when they placed their orders and when it had to be delivered.
“The product we supplied is the heaviest and most difficult to install, so it had to be coordinated with the crane on the jobsite. With a construction site of this magnitude, everything must run like clockwork.”
A team effort
Coltharp credits TDIndustries for keeping their suppliers in the loop throughout the process. “Before they even broke ground, we spent numerous hours in the planning stages with TD,” he said. “Basically, you build it on paper before you even pick up a tool. Not every contractor will let a supplier in on those meetings. But TD really appreciates everybody’s input and considers their suppliers part of their contracting team. Of course, the fact that we’ve been doing business with them for 34 years has helped build a high level of trust between our organizations.”
Hurd was also quick to credit a number of All-Tex staff members for their dedication to the project: “While it was a team effort throughout our organization, our inside salespeople Pam MacDonald and Brett Arison were really the ones who coordinated the orders internally and got the information into our system. They specifically back up Mike [Coltharp], and work closely with TDIndustries. They lived and breathed Cowboys Stadium every day. Pam and our Dallas operations manager Bill Thompson worked together to coordinate materials going to the pre-fab shop, while Brett and our Fort Worth operations manager Darrell Brown coordinated all the materials that went directly to the construction site. And throughout the project, our accounting people did a fantastic job.”
To minimize the risk of jobsite accidents, vendors were required to adhere to a stringent safety protocol. All-Tex drivers had to pass safety courses and background checks, and had to adhere to the same safety standards as the construction crews — meaning wearing steel-toed boots, hardhats and safety glasses when making deliveries.
During construction, the one constant was that the project — and the price tag — just kept growing. The numerous change orders — with no deadline extensions — meant that everyone involved had to step up to meet new requests quickly, and were probably the most challenging aspect of the project for all involved.
And even though football season is well underway, the stadium is not yet fully complete. There is an entire additional floor that will not be started until after the season ends, so All-Tex and their supply chain partners will continue to be involved for some time to come.
A look inside All-Tex and Tyler Pipe
Founded in 1973, All-Tex operated from a single location in Dallas until an acquisition in 2000 gave the company an operation in Fort Worth. In addition to its two Metroplex locations, All-Tex now has branches in Houston, San Antonio, Austin and Beaumont. All together, All-Tex employs roughly 125 people.
Hurd credits the Eclipse operating system for allowing the company’s expansion and branch network to run so smoothly. “Internally, it makes a huge difference for us,” she explained. “We don’t have to travel to our other locations very often because we have access to all the information we need from our headquarters in Dallas. It’s just like being there. Of course, it was a learning process for us to manage employees remotely after being focused on just the Metroplex for so many years. We had to learn to rely on electronic technologies to manage our growing organization.”
To ensure that the All-Tex culture, which has been so finely honed at the headquarters, is standard operating procedure at all locations, Hurd planted “seed people” in these operations to get them off the ground. She also hired Judy Showalter, a human resources professional, to oversee the critical “people” part of the company. Through culture orientation, training and internal communication, Showalter helps bring unity to the group.
“We’ve also taken our quarterly company meetings — an All-Tex tradition for over 20 years — on the road to all locations,” Hurd noted. “It promotes the culture and ensures that everyone feels like they are a part of the bigger organization.”
All-Tex doesn’t have branch managers per se; rather all branch personnel report to the executive team functionally. The operations managers report to vp-operations Larry Caffey, while purchasing agents are under the direction of vp-purchasing Brian Harrigan. Coo Bob Arison leads the strategic initiatives of the company-wide sales staff, while svp-sales Mike Coltharp handles day-to-day sales issues. Evp Dale Hurd oversees all non-sales personnel and is involved in nearly all areas of operations. In addition, former Anvil executive Ernie Chuter joined the team a year and a half ago to develop the Houston and Beaumont market for All-Tex.
Tyler Pipe was founded in 1935 as the Tyler Iron and Foundry Co., producing cast iron soil pipe and fittings. In 1959, they introduced the industry’s first 10-foot lengths of cast iron soil pipe, and the following year, installed a computer system for sales and inventory support. Just a few years later, Tyler Pipe acquired Wade Inc., and began marketing a full line of plumbing and drainage specification products. In the meantime, their ty-seal compression gaskets received national acceptance. Along the way, they introduced a number of new products, including no-hub pipe and fittings, pressure pipe fittings with push-in joints, carrier fittings, RufWall Engineered Piping Systems, ductile iron production castings, gasket push-on specification products, and a variety of sizes of pipe and fittings.
In 1995, Tyler Pipe was acquired by Ransom Industries Inc., a subsidiary of McWane Corporation with headquarters in Birmingham, Ala., and in 1998 automatic cupola charging and robotics were introduced to Tyler’s plants in Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania and California. According to Bliss, Tyler Pipe employs roughly 430 and has more than 1.6 million square feet of production under roof. In addition to the centralized shipping out of the Tyler facility, the company also operates a distribution center near Allentown, Pa., as well as a small pipe yard in Corona, Calif.
“We’re highly mechanized, which has been the biggest change in the way pipe is produced,” explained Bliss. “Most of the work done at our foundry is mechanized. Our pipe is rarely touched by human hands throughout the production process. It is made on machines that spin cast the pipe before going through a hot dipping process. Then ink jet printers label pretty much the entire length of the pipe as it goes by, and then it goes onto pallets and is bundled. It is a very automated process. We have the capability to load and ship about 40 truckloads a day.”
When it comes down to it, both All-Tex and Tyler Pipe note that it’s really the partnership they’ve developed that has helped them be successful and to handle a job as big as this with precision and ease.
“Tyler Pipe’s relationship with our wholesalers is very important,” Bliss explained. “We sell only through wholesale distribution and we have developed programs that enable both parties to be profitable. It’s a partnership and that’s exactly how we look at it. We value those relationships to the highest regard.”
His colleague Sterling Bowman added, “Since I’ve been involved with Tyler Pipe, All-Tex has been a premier customer. They are as top-class of a customer — both in the way they do business and in their personnel — as they come. Being involved with them on the Cowboys Stadium has helped us grow our business with All-Tex and prove that they can depend on us for any type of project.”
And for All-Tex, they continue to show that lean — but extremely focused — companies can pave the way in this highly competitive marketplace.
“We just buckle down, do our part and make it work,” Hurd said. “The fact that we have consciously built our infrastructure for growth meant that a job of this magnitude was not disruptive for our normal operations. It is, in fact, our norm. We’ve almost always got some sort of billion-dollar project going on. It just proves what you can do if you are prepared.”
For additional information, visit www.alltexpipe.com and www.tylerpipe.com.