Ever wanted to see how precast concrete is batch mixed before it’s poured? Interested in how concrete is cast, cured, or certified? Thinking about upgrading your precast plant and how to do it? Columbia Precast Products offers plant tours during the week to help clients, customers, engineers, and anyone else in the precast concrete industry understand what we do.
Our goal is to shine a light on how we build an engineered product. Although it doesn’t seem very technical when you see a manhole on the back of a truck or a vault structure being lowered into place by an excavator, precast concrete is highly engineered. These tours are designed to illustrate just how much technical expertise goes into each and every piece we produce.
As clients change and the ability to create custom precast concrete products increases, we hope to highlight the industry as a whole. Whether it’s improved quality control for city officials or showing design engineers the versatility of today’s precast industry, we hope these tours give our guests an improved perception of the industry.
While there is no one set time or day for plant tours, earlier in the day works best because you can see the facility in full operation. Seeing a precast catch basin being produced from beginning to end is much more illustrative than just hearing about it.
While we touch on the main aspects of the casting – including mixing, pouring, and testing our pieces – we will tailor the tour to your interests. A plant manager interested in improved efficiencies will want a different tour than a city or county official wanting more information on quality control.
A standard tour last around 45 minutes, but can extend up to two hours depending on questions or more in-depth looks at different aspects of the facility. These tours can last as long as our guests need them to be. We’re very proud of our facility – we were the first in the US to be SMaRT Certified after all – and we don’t mind talking about it!
Interested in taking a tour? Reach out to schedule a time to come visit. Let us know what aspects of the operation is most important to you and we’ll make sure you get the information you’re looking for. We look forward to showing you around!
