General Fabricators, Inc. New Stainless Steel Fabrication shop

Stainless steel fabrication has become a vital part to the services General Fabricators, Inc offers our customers.

Thank you all for working with us.

We appreciate you working with us! Fit tables are being completed and equipment will be in place and the shop will be open Monday, Nov. 20, 2017.

We’re ready for any of your stainless steel pipe fabrication requirements.

We’re starting a project for one of our customers, a power plant. Other projects for an oil refinery, petrochemical plant and have another petrochemical project with materials hitting the yard in the next couple of weeks.

Our carbon steel shops are still running, let us know what you need and when you need it. We’ll get right on it.

A Preview of Our New Website

Our original website has performed quite well. However, over the years since we hosted it we’ve grown. Grown in size, changed locations from Delcambre, La. to New Iberia, La. We’ve grown in the size of projects as well as the number of projects we can complete.

We’re deciding to grow our internet presence as well as our social media presence.

Send me something exciting you, your family or friends have done on facebook. I’ll do my best to make sure it’s posted there.

Let me know what you think about our new website.

General Fabricators, New Website Preview

 

 

We Do Process Pipe Right

This will be a short, to the point post.

This is a warm felt thank you for all those that work with us. We appreciate all that you do. It doesn’t get said often enough. But its felt every moment of every day.

You are the BEST! You work together like a well oiled machine. A well oiled pipe manufacturing machine!

It’s an honor and privilege working with you all.

 

“B2B” is an Overused Phrase

B2B, what does it mean? Business to Business, everybody knows that, right?

But does everybody realize that Businesses are made up of “people” who want to be treated like people? Do we always keep in mind these “people” don’t have to work with us or even take the time to find out what we do or why we do it or how we do it? Do we keep in mind that our business should be to help others do what they do better? Not always “what’s in it for me” kind of attitude.

Case in point. I received an email a few weeks back from an engineering firm who wanted to “do my ISO’s and other drawings”. Ok, I read it and deleted it. A few days later I got another email from the same person. I deleted it. A few more days passed and I got another email, this time he said,” I sent you and email and you haven’t responded”. I’m not sure what mood I was in at that moment, but I took the time to see where this guy was from, India. So figuring it’s a cultural thing, I decided to send a response to his email. I explained in as few words as I could that we didn’t need that type of service at this time. And that I would like to offer a suggestion on how he came across in his emails. I suggested I didn’t have to respond to his email and he shouldn’t come across like I did. As well as a few other suggestions about contacting people for his services in our area. We are a different breed of people and expect a certain approach, in the South of Louisiana.

I moved on with my day and week.

Later I received a phone call from this person. As we talked he was very demanding, didn’t really seem to listen and was very abrasive. I stopped him, suggested he change his manner of conversing with me. I explained that I responded to his email and asked if he read it? Obviously he didn’t. He said yes, that’s why I called you. Needless to say, I ended the conversation quickly. This company hasn’t done itself any benefit by the approach being taken.

That made me think about how we come across when we talk with prospective customers, customers and everyday conversations with others around us. I know how I mean to come across, but how am I coming across to the other person. I started paying attention to that in my own life, the whole day. I had to make quite a few “adjustments” to what I was saying and how I was saying them. I’m now taking more time to keep my “adjustments” with me at all times.

It’s very important to remember, B2B does mean Business to Business. With that said, we should be compelled to remember that each business is made up of people just like us. Doing what it takes to keep our businesses open and profitable. Doing what we can to help one another offer our own customers more of what they need to increase the value our customers derive from doing business with us.

One last example. I emailed someone I thought I remembered meeting quite a few years ago and asked if he would make time to talk with me. I got a response within the day, yes we could talk and he gave me his cell number along with a time that would work for him the next day.

Please be mindful, we were in the ending stages of the unprecedented flooding of south Louisiana at that time.

I called him the next afternoon just as we agreed. I asked him how his day was going and he told me he’d had better. He’d just been to his cardiologist that morning and didn’t like what he heard from him. And he was working on his house that had been flooded with a foot of water. I tried to excuse myself from bothering him, but he said, he needed the break. We had not met before as I had thought, but he made me feel like we had known each other for a long time. He was honest and genuine. I did my best to do the same. He suggested we make it our business to build our relationship. He’d help me with whatever he could to work with his company, in other words making sure I was given a fair opportunity. This isn’t his first rodeo either. I gave him my word that we’d do everything we could to help him get awarded any project we were offered an opportunity to submit a proposal on. A clean, simple, business to business relationship is starting. One based on people, their needs, wants, and desires that benefit both our companies.

I made a new friend that day and am looking forward to working with him and his company, or not. We still came out ahead, we have a new person who understands what it takes to be in business. We can help one another by just talking and sharing ideas and leads, as well as what life has for us. We still both win, whether our two businesses work together or not.

That’s B2B success!

 

 

 

Around the Shop

 

All’s well here at General Fabricators, Inc. New Iberia, La. this week. We’ve picked up a couple of more projects.

We’re working with a new customer in Houston. We’ve been awarded 2 projects in Texas. They’re going according to plan. We’ve picked up a few more projects this week, all the work is in Texas. A tank terminal and plant expansion. We shipped a couple of projects out last week.

I spent some time in the shop this morning taking video’s. Look for them on Facebook, General Fabricators, Inc. They will be uploaded to YouTube as well. Check our page out sometime.

I had the opportunity to speak with a couple of the men working in the shop. Great guys!

We’re here to serve you process pipe fabrication needs just about everyday of the week.

Call or email us to find out how we can work with you.

More pipe ready for delivery. It’s what we do all day, every day. Check out our work.

Process Pipe Fabrication Mid Year

It’s HOT!

In this mornings safety meeting, everyone was advised to stay hydrated, stay safe and let everyone know they were keeping production up and we appreciated it.

We’re on the last lap to finish the Kinder Morgan project for Tennessee compressor station. We’re well on our way to finishing the one Enterprise Products project for Mt. Belvieu and getting a really great start on the 2 other Enterprise Products projects for another customer. So 4 jobs with 3 customers are well on their way to completion.

We’re aggressively looking for our next project award. We’ve got a few possibilities, but that’s up to our customers to win the overall project.

We’ve been busy, but not to busy to take on another job.

We’ve made the decision to no longer take large diameter pipe fabrication with heavy wall thickness. It’s just to heavy for the equipment in our shop. We’re concentrating on smaller od’s and up to 24″ od with light wall.

Focus is up, moral is up, now we just need our next projects awarded for everything to be up.

 

A Warning for Drivers Everywhere

I just saw this online, thought I’d share it with all of you.

New trend in theft in Houston.

 

Process Pipe and the Different Industries

In this post I’m doing my best to help our customers understand what pipe means to us and what it doesn’t mean to us.

First off, please don’t take offense to what I’m pointing out. I mean no disrespect for whatever industry you work in.

We should get something straight. In conversations at the ILTA Conference as well as a phone conversation I had with a prospective customer yesterday.

For some reason those who work in the, lets say, environmental, air compression, gas compressor station construction seem to think that pipe for that industry is somehow different from, say, the petrochemical industry or the power industry. NOT!

Process pipe is just that, process pipe. We weld within the parameters of ASME code or API 1104 or API 1104M. Our welding procedures are submitted to our customers customer for review and approval. Once that’s done, we’re off and running.

Whether your project is for a compressor station, tank terminal, petrochemical plant or any other industrial application the same spec’s and codes apply. Each customer you have may want something a little different, but overall, things stay pretty consistent.

So, when we say we fabricate process pipe for heavy industrial and EPC contractors, that’s what we mean.

I realize some of what I’ve said might offend some of you reading this. That was and is not my intent. My intent is to explain how we look at your project in light of the industry you have chosen to work in.

Let’s see if I can explain it another way. Years ago I worked with a company that fabricated large and small ASME code vessels. I worked with them for just about 20 years and attended more meetings than I’d care to mention. With that said, I was always asked if we could build this size vessel. My answer was always the same, Yes. We had built some that I could deliver in the back of my pickup truck and once we built one for a plant that was 13′ of x 210′ tall and weighed somewhere around 250 tons.

Now, the reason I’m telling you this is because that company built ASME code vessels, no matter if it was for a refinery or petrochemical plant or for offshore platforms. They’re all ASME Code vessels. I used to call them BRT’s and LRT’s. Continue reading, I’ll tell you what that means down the line.

So the same thing is working here. Process pipe is carbon steel, stainless steel, chrome, low temp, all for reasons engineers have determined would handle the product properly. For our purposes it really doesn’t matter if you’re moving raw crude oil, peanut oil, bio diesel, gas, ethanol, refrigerant, natural gas, LNG, NGL’s, acids, or just about anything else you can work with. You give us the specifications to fabricate your process pipe too, we take it from there.

Again, all that said, we fabricate process pipe and the structural steel that supports it, even if that’s a modular design or just skid mounted.

If we were involved with the process parameters, I could understand why you may ask, have you fabricated pipe that went into power plants before? Or you may ask, have you fabricated pipe that went into a refinery, or plastic’s plant, or, you think of an industry and fill in the blank.

We’re here to help your company be as profitable as it can be. We’re a resource to be drawn on like you’d reach into your tool box for your best liked wrench. We’re here to assist your Project Manager make his project as cost effective as it can be. We realize the Project Manager has the fiduciary responsibility of his project. If he makes money, enough of a percentage for his company he gets to keep his job. If he doesn’t make enough profit, his days are numbered. We get that, so we do our best to help every Project Manager keep his project profitable. We can be a project managers best friend. We assist with delivery schedule changes or interruptions. We deal with material that doesn’t arrive on time and help you figure out what’s the best approach from this point forward. We keep his/her priority of delivered pipe to the job site on schedule. We communicate with the installation supervisor to find out how they’re going to install what we’re sending so we can load that pipe on the truck in the order and the way he can most efficiently off load and install it. We tag and bag everything with color codes, and tags that have all the information anyone should need to determine where that piece goes from which drawing. And our list of “value” added services is a long list, longer than needs to be on this blog. Call me to discuss, 337-354-6560, on my cell.

Our companies main objective is to assist you in being the most profitable company you can be using our service. This attitude gets us the next job as well as help you get your next award. We can help you build the best relationship with your customer one project at a time.

Ok, now I’ll tell you what BRT’s and LRT’s are. Are you ready? Big round things and little round things.

What you use the pipe we fabricate for is of no consequence to us.  All we have to do is fabricate it according to the specifications you give us from your customers and anything you want in addition to that. We’ll take care of it from there.

Please give us a call, 337-685-2585 to discuss how we can be your partner in success.

 

Process Pipe Fabrication is What We Do

There is a question that’s asked of me every time I contact a new prospective customer for our services. “What do you do?”

That’s pretty simple to explain, we specialize in the fabrication of process pipe for the petrochemical, power, compression, refining, and terminal industries. We only work with heavy industrial contractors and EPC construction companies. So, we won’t be a competitor of yours sometime down the road.

We WERE a construction company until 4 1/2 years ago. We made a business decision to no longer support construction. We made the choice to keep our fabrication shop, converting it to a production pipe fabrication facility. Further, we decided we would support other construction companies as our target market.

Every construction company “can” fabricate their own pipe, either in there shop or in the field. However, every shop I’ve visited are set up as “job shops” to fabricated whatever the field needs. They’re fabricating pipe on pipe stands, welding in position, just like they would in the field.

Our shop can out produce and out perform this mode of fabrication simply by the processes we’ve engineered into our facility and the roll out equipment we use to support our welding.

With that said, our welding time can greatly decrease the time it takes to support the field crews on sight.

We don’t want to and are not asking you to shut your shop down, we’re asking you to give us an opportunity to show you how we can assist you in the success of your field construction projects. There are times that your shop will be utilized for critical, fast turn around aspects of just about every project you have. We help in the area’s that production rates can save money and time.

There are few things that slow our deliveries down. Weather being the most frustrating reason. We give our customers our word that we will do everything in our power to never allow anything to get in the way of delivering you your fabricated pipe on time and at the agreed upon amount. If anything changes in that promise, we’ll be contacting you right away to discuss, before it adversely impacts your project.

We have a proven system of marking pipe so your field crews know what every piece is, where it goes, and what drawing it belongs to.

Working with General Fabricators, Inc. is like having your own production pipe fabrication facility without the overhead, head aches of running a shop, personnel issues and you don’t pay us when we don’t have a project in house for you.

We all win, and that’s a key aspect of our business. If you, your customers, and we can’t win, what’s the use of doing it? We do our very best to put you in such a position that we help you get your job done just like you promised your customers, so we can both continue having a successful business relationship.

We build a history and loyalty with our so we can have long term relationships. Trust is very important to both of us. We trust you will do what you say you will and you trust us to do what we said we’d do. That simple.

• Trust
• Loyalty
• Performance with accountability
• Delivery
• High Quality craftsmanship
• Quick turnaround of projects
• Communication with Project Managers

These are all key aspects of our business.

Work with General Fabricators, Inc. and see the difference. We do what we say we will, when we say we’ll have it done.

Working as a Team

I know, I’m always talking about “attitude”. It’s that important.

We had a very refreshing meeting with one of our customers this morning. Everything works out well when respect is shown by everyone. Team has no “I’s” in it.

Great meeting.

Attitude plays such a vital role in business. Building one another up, working with people who help bring the best out in everyone around them. That’s what makes business so exciting and fulfilling.

We’re cutting pipe, cleaning fittings, cleaning the ends of that pipe, getting it into the shop for the fitters to get to work. We’re pushing the fitters a bit hard this week to load up the welders so everyone can be a productive as possible.

The attitude in the shop is pretty high at this time. The guys are all excited we have work lined up and materials on the yard for the next weeks. With prospects being discussed daily.

This year isn’t starting out quite how we anticipated. I believe a lot of that has to do with the crap the media is spewing out about government. That kind of talk hurts every business as well as hurt individuals make a living to support their families.

Once you say something that smears a mans reputation, those words never go away, not ever.

All a man has is his reputation. Everything he has is wrapped up in his reputation. His wife and children know his reputation. His neighbors, co workers, organization members, people in the community know him by his reputation. Once you damage that view of a man, it’s almost never possible to overcome it. Someone, anyone can say someone said or did something and no matter how much he defends himself, the stigma is still set in doubt about him.

That’s a shame, really. The one who says these “bad things” about a man usually doesn’t suffer for what he’s done. I believe that what goes around comes around, however, it never repairs the damage that has been done.

Pipe fabrication is a really volatile business to be in. Everyone and their brother thinks anyone can weld pipe. NOT!

It takes a lot to get it done right. It takes a special kind of man to get everything running on the right track from the beginning. If a project doesn’t start out correctly, with in a process, it’s doomed to fail. We take pride in getting it started correctly from day one! Then keeping control of it no matter what takes place during day one or any other day after that. Project Management is such a vital and key role to a successful projects completion.

The Project Manager never gets the at a boys he deserves, usually because before the last project is over the next one is already starting. He just moves onto the next project and finishes the last one at the same time. Not many people can do that effectively. They are hard to come by, training someone to be able to do that is tough. The Project Manager has to have what it takes within himself, before teaching can be effective.

I have high regard and respect for the Project Manager on any project. He deserves it. So the end of this post is to say thank you to Project Managers, and to say thank you for our Project Manager, Jeff Aucoin.

I hope my philosophical rants are being understood. They are to help make me a better person as well as help others to “think”. We tend to not think much about the most important things in life. We seem to “react” to everything.

Anyway, have a great and successful week!

Let us work with you on your next project! Call us 337-354-6560