Planning Problem: Meeting a Roof Challenge

Crews working on the re-roofing project of the Wells Fargo Arena at Arizona State University in 2011 set a goal of making 100 penetrations each night so crews could install solar panels during their shifts. A series of events combined to make the installations more challenging than originally planned and pushed the project close to the November completion deadline set by the utility.

One problem was that planners had underestimated the amount of time and materials needed to create the penetrations.

"It was a learning process, and we had issues with the material delivery," Ngo says. "We didn't anticipate how much material we'd need up there."

Crews also lost time to the weather. Arizona's monsoon season, which generally starts in July and can linger into September, brought rainstorms and dust storms and occasionally stopped work. The arena's location on campus also slowed the project.

"Logistically, the arena is located right by the major student parking area," Ngo says. "There's lots of student traffic all day long, and debris falls off. Getting to the roof was another challenge because we had to set up scaffolding and not expose it" for security and aesthetic reasons.

Roofing crews also needed to stop work when crews working inside coated the arena's basketball floor near the end of October.

"During that time, we couldn't do any roof work and have materials fall down on a newly coated floor," Ngo says. "We'd have to hold off three to four days to coat the floor, and even when finished, the floor still had dust falling down on it."

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