Dave Marusa has seen the construction industry shift over his decades-long career, especially within the 12 years he’s been with RGI. Rebecca Ferlotti, content marketer, sat down with Dave to discuss the benefits of in-house fabrication shops like RGI’s and how they work with the rest of the company to save clients time and money.
What are some of the construction trends that you’ve seen grow within the last couple of years?
It used to be one person taking a project from start to finish. A worker would cut the parts, machine the parts, assemble all the parts, and put finishes on everything (for laminate-based projects). Generally, people had additional painters or finishers to do any wood staining or painting. The finished parts would get loaded onto the truck to be shipped.
Nowadays, you work section by section. Most people will have you building 25–50 modular sections. A lot of modular construction has been popping up—from simple, small components to pre-assemblies. The final assembly is done at the work site. For shipping purposes, it’s cheaper to send smaller components than larger components.
If people are doing more intensive work—building modular components rather than having a machine create them—are they then getting more of a say in how a piece functions?
Yes, and most places will listen to feedback from all their employees because everyone shares in the experience and profits of the company. If a company does well, they reward you for it.
So thinking about how RGI operates, how would you describe what the shop does for someone who’s never visited?
We basically build one-of-a-kind exhibits, displays, and trade show environments. These designs are based on our designers’ interviews with our clients, understanding what they are trying to achieve. Our designers will come up with a concept, show it to the client, and then the gentlemen in the shop will figure out how we can achieve that build for the client. The majority of the time, if you look at the finished product, you’d think the designers were sketching up the final product rather than the other way around. We try to keep things as close as possible to the original design, kind of like we’re a large prototype shop. Every piece is unique, and if it isn’t, it’s for the same client who needs a couple of duplicate displays.
It seems like you all always go in with the intention of adaptability as well, so if a client wants to keep using that same display over the course of a couple years or more, it’s able to be used with just a few simple tweaks to that model.
Simple modifications can change the appearance of anything whether it be add-ons, subtractions, color changes, textures, or anything else. Our motto is, “We build environments,” because environments are what drive people’s way of thinking. With that in mind, we strive to capture what the client intended to achieve by having us create the environment. That’s simply through design. We’ve got a great team here that works very hard trying to achieve that. We’ll spend a lot of time with clients trying to get the information from them through interviews.
And if they come to the office, they’re able to see projects firsthand to understand how their goals might be captured in a finished piece. When people are able to use an in-house fabrication shop, how else does that save them time?
The in-house fabrication shop is more of a controlled cost based on having machinery and materials readily available. The labor force is right there too. They’re all combined and not scattered about, per se. When we do in-house fabrication, it saves time on the labor side of the installation aspect because we control all of that. We’ll build our components and modulars so they can be readily and quickly assembled on site with less people and in less time.
We’re also in constant contact with the designers, and designers have constant contact with us. They can walk into the shop during the fabrication process when they would normally have to drive to some fabrication house to see the progress. That adds labor hours to the whole process.
With everyone being under one roof here, it works to everyone’s advantage—to be able to collaborate with one another. And then, we bring the client in every once in a while to review the build and to make sure we’re on the same page with everything.
Also, as far as spending extra time goes, outdoor builds are impacted by weather. Or for a museum exhibit, you may have to shut down that part of the museum to build on site. In an in-house fabrication shop, you don’t have to worry about that wasted time.
There are other things that come into factor as well when you think about labor costs of on-site fabrication vs. in-house fabrication. You’re paying for your employees’ hotels, meals, and travel when you bring workers on site.
The last project we did was for a museum, and we were able to keep half the location open. We were able to achieve things within a small area rather than shutting everything down. (When sparks fly, you can’t have people around.)
The material costs go along with that as well. Our shop is a controlled environment for both weather and cost. For materials going to other locations, we’d be at the mercy of their prices. If we’re going to New York City, there would be a steep price change on materials rather than shipping completed components from Cleveland.
You’re also able to preserve or recycle materials you don’t use within an in-house fabrication shop. But if you’re on site, you have to get rid of anything left over. So in-house fabrication tends to be more sustainable.
Yes, we’ll hold onto any usable-sized pieces after achieving a project’s dimensions. Anything that’s recyclable, whether it be metal, paper, or what have you, is recycled in a responsible manner. So that allows us to be sustainable in a couple ways.
Like you said, when you’re on site, everything is going into a dumpster. And there’s not much sustainability with a dumpster coming in and taking every piece of waste you have without being able to sort through. You can’t put paper where it needs to go, take metal to the scrapyard, etc. It all goes to one location, and it’s not being reused or recycled.
Plus, sustainability is super cost-effective—being able to reuse or recycle those materials when you have quite a surplus saves the client money in the end.
And the other thing is, a lot of them are very involved in companies’ sustainability when they’re looking for fabricators because it’s really irresponsible not to try to reuse and recycle as much as possible nowadays. When I was growing up, we didn’t have to worry about it as much. But now, with the Earth where it’s at, we have to watch everything we do. The more we can work with our Earth instead of against our Earth, the better off we are—both as individuals and as a company.