Little River Casino Resort

Summary

Type:

Entertainment

Definition:

New

Date Completed:

06/01/2005

Description

They say there’s a first time for everything, and the saying proved true for Allied Electric when contracted to install the electrical system in the Little River Casino Hotel in Manistee. “For the first time in our history, we prefabricated the wiring in the shop rather than built it on site,” recalls Mike Powers, Allied’s project manager for the 80-room facility. The prefabrication of electrical and mechanical work has been gaining popularity in the last ten years. Rather than sending drawings to the construction site, where the foreman lays it out for the electricians to install, on this occasion everything was pre-engineered and assembled in-house before being boxed and shipped to the site, room by room. Powers says it made sense to do it this way, since hotel rooms are fairly uniform.

Prefabrication has definite advantages in terms of schedule, labor costs, and controlling risk, according to Powers. “When you can apply it correctly, it allows you to meet a compressed schedule with less stress—or if you get behind, you can catch up.” Powers says that Allied Electric will use the prefabrication method in the future when individual projects would benefit from that approach.