Formula Contractors Ltd. gains ground in a broad range of projects thanks to diverse capabilities
Western and Arctic construction projects have been turning to Prince George-based Formula Contractors Ltd. for the right equation for job success since 1977. In the early days, the company was known as Formula Pile and Bridge. Growth in its capabilities and skill sets saw it refresh the business moniker to reflect the fact that the company was growing to be more than spanning rivers and pounding foundations.
The breadth of their expanding operations, from Manitoba west to the Pacific Ocean and U.S. border at the 49th parallel north to the Beaufort Sea including Yukon and N.W.T., includes the full range of construction services from project management to structures such as massive steel drainage culverts, to mine site development and reclamation to renewable energy (Formula Contractors built B.C.’s first wind farm foundations at Dawson Creek) as well as some of North America’s most demanding highway and bridge work, not to mention a wide range of foundation projects.
“We wanted to diversify so we changed the name to reflect that we do so much more than just piling and bridge work,” said partner and project manager, Phil Toma, pointing to a long list of services that include road and earth works, equipment and portable bridge rentals, material handling and structural steel erection to name just part of the menu. “When I started with Formula Contractors 10 years ago, we had just 10 to 15 guys on crews. Now we have a crew cohort that number 30 to 40 and have had up to 120 workers on some jobs. We also have a professional engineer on staff that joined us from B.C.’s Ministry of Transportation.”
Certainly, having the right sized crews with the right skills and equipment has allowed Formula to diversify in an ever-changing economic environment. Yes, they work in oil and gas, but the breadth of skills has positioned the company to win bids in the logging sector, in mining, on highway projects such as bridges and in earthworks with recent undertaking in HDPE piping install.
The company also keeps up to speed on the latest equipment as well as inventories all the standard tools that are must-haves to keep jobs on track. For example, Formula utilizes standard workhorse cranes to 110 ton that are teamed with new diesel and fibril hammers. Formula also recently acquired a Digga 90 attachment to allow greater capability with screw anchor drive systems.
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“If our clients want it, we get it,” said Toma, noting that the new Grand Prairie branch is an example of Formula’s ability to meet client needs. “We always had a yard in Grand Prairie, but as we grew we could see we needed more capability in the area so we increased our ability to service jobs by building a new facility with offices, an enhanced yard and more interior space for equipment and vehicle storage and project prep.”
Formula’s “concept-to-completion” approach has seen its business bloom. Currently, Formula is working on a project on the Little Smokey River in central Alberta where they are constructing a water intake structure that can handle 500,050 cubic feet of flow. This job requires a team of 30 crew-members working 24 hours a day on a 50-day completion track.
“Materials are coming in on winter roads and we have to be finished before thaw begins,” said Toma.
Formula is also working on the Inuvik to Tuk Highway project in the Northwest Territories. Last year, the company completed three bridges, two are being worked on this year and three are planned for 2016. Toma reports that Formula is working with general contactors Northwind and E Grubens Transport (EGT Northwind) to create 140 kilometers of new highway construction. In this case, permafrost is a challenge. According to Toma, they are using 16-inch pile casings 60 feet into permafrost.
“The piling is prepared with elongated holes and then pump slurry and sand,” he said. “Once the thermometers tell us the material has reached 0oC, we build on it.”
Last year, Formula constructed a design-build bridge at KM995 on the Mackenzie Valley Winter Road near Norman Wells, N.W.T. This job required 762 piles that had to go through shale, a facet that offered a variety of challenges that were all part of Formula’s substantial skill set.
Commenting that they have taken work as easterly as Manitoba where they did projects for both Tolko Industries in The Pas and Manitoba Hydro at their Gillam generating station, Toma says, “We’ll go where the work is, but we only take on the right jobs. Smart growth is where we are at.” He says that their method is to find anchor projects and then supplement these with smaller jobs that keep crews busy. This way, Formula can maintain its skilled workforce and be ready for projects as they arise.
“We also have a solid relationship with our unions,” said Toma. “This means when we have a need to expand our workforce to take a larger job, we can quickly find the right workers with the proper skills.”
It’s all about flexibility, he says.
“Working in Canada is great, but it’s cyclical. We forecast and plan but find we are always looking for the next job,” he said, mentioning that coming soon is the startup of new bridgework for ConocoPhilips. “We also have to be multifaceted to take full advantage of our strengths. Our staff is responsible for the complete project. We don’t have separate estimators or schedulers. One guy does it all and each project manager is out there looking for the next job. At Formula Contractors, we don’t have levels of administrative bureaucracy. The guy you deal with is the guy who does the job. This means we don’t have big overhead, something that we can pass along to clients in highly competitive project bids.”
This quality equation adds up to a lot of satisfied clients since 1977.
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