Specializing in a wide variety of areas as an EPC provider, Alliance Industrial Group (AIG) offers heavy civil construction, site preparation, exchangers, boilers, furnaces, vessels and towers, sheet metal, instrumentation and electrical, piping, mechanical services, structural steel, code welding, shop fabrication, equipment installation and demo, and project controls. Alliance has more than 40 years of expertise and the credentials to back it up.
Considered a one-stop shop for all project stages, AIG has expanded organically thanks to its stellar safety and quality record, inventiveness, and the capacity to plan and carry out projects in a way that can genuinely save clients significant money and time.
Headquartered in Lumberton, Texas, with fabrication shops in Lumberton, Texas, Kountze, Texas and Lake Charles, Louisiana, the company continues to extend its reach Coast to Coast and is licensed in 36-plus states.
Saving costs
Alliance Industrial Group and SMW Projects have gained the industry’s recognition by concentrating on employing cost-saving strategies to enable customers to accomplish more tasks in less time. As an EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) group, the company can save clients between 12 and 18 percent on TIC (Total Installed Cost) and cut months off their timeline prediction.
And, as a Project Controls Specialist, AIG can enhance facility installation costs while fostering an atmosphere that maintains owner control and holds contractors accountable. As a T/A Management Team, AIG can also help improve on all future turnaround planning expenses due to a proven, effective management style and integration strategy.
All of this is possible due to the company’s commitment to caring for its employees and being good stewards of clients on all levels.
“We view each of our employees as individuals,” says Mike Chirafis, Corporate HSE Manager. “We value the safety of all of our employees, and take a special interest in each one of them personally. We see them as the valued asset to the company, that they’re the ones out there doing the work for us,” he says.
“And with the culture we embed in them from the beginning, throughout the project—not only from their immediate supervisors but from project management and upper management up to the ownership—it helps build that culture for each one of those employees.”
“We try to know everyone personally,” shares CEO and President Chris Griffith. “If you get to know your employees, you can have a relationship with them.”
Open doors
Having a better, more open relationship also extends to the company having a “100 percent open door policy. We chip in and we help out one another because it is about as much of a family as you can get without truly being related to each other,” says Griffith. And this feeling of being a family extends beyond just the company, he adds.
“I think our clients know we consider ourselves partners with them. We’re very good stewards of their money. Our philosophy is to do the right thing all the time, even when no one’s looking.”
Indeed, many of AIG’s clients have been with the company for years and have forged long-lasting relationships with the team. “Whenever they’re doing fundraisers or something for a good cause, we jump in,” Griffith says. “We help out; we’re trying to form more of a partnership, an alliance, with our clients rather than just being a service provider to them.”
AIG is also dedicated to ongoing safety training, with a focus on continuous improvement. “We take a boots-on-the-ground approach, getting in the field and having conversations with employees on a day-to-day basis, not just observing the work being performed and the hazards that may be present,” says Chirafis. “Again, it’s building that relationship with them and letting them know about our open-door policy and how they can follow the chain of command to mitigate any issues that may come up.”
The core of the company
Along with that continued one-on-one focus, AIG also has a world-class training center at one of its facilities in Sulphur, Louisiana, undertaking quarterly training with all core staff.
“Our core staff doesn’t have to necessarily mean a supervisor,” says Griffith. “It’s a core person, someone that works and stays here. It could be someone who sweeps the floors of the shops, but they’re a permanent employee.”
Permanent employees, he adds, receive robust benefits including health insurance, paid vacation, and a 401(k) amongst other benefits such as diverse quarterly training. “It may be safety training one quarter, and then it may be specialty task training the next. We brought in 3M and did fall protection training where they set up the scaffolding and jump off with a harness on,” Griffith explains. “We’re continually training all our core staff and showing them [new things]. If it’s on weekends, we pay them to come in on the weekend and do this training.”
This unwavering commitment has resulted in more than 37 years without a lost-time accident, and a previous milestone of almost seven years without one recordable incident—an extraordinary feat.
“We’re committed to the safety of our employees and continuing to exceed previous accomplishments,” says Chirafis. “We actually were two weeks shy of having seven years on record, without [a] recordable [incident]. As a company we are dedicated to maintaining our safety culture and success.”
Employees have also provided positive feedback regarding AIG’s ongoing commitment to not only safety but the overall company culture. “Recently we held an appreciation luncheon for our employees on a project south of New Orleans, Louisiana, where employees and supervision were recognized, and door prizes were handed out,” says Chirafis. “That had a tremendous impact on employee morale, attitude toward safety, and understanding of what AIG expects from everyone at all levels. It also contributed to our strong safety culture.”
Additionally, any time there’s a recognized preventive work stoppage, that employee receives some type of award or recognition, says Griffith, adding that AIG has had many employees use stop work authority for one reason or another, to ensure alignment with what a customer is asking for. “We [appreciate them] having the courage to know they’re not going to do [something questionable], no matter if you want us to or not,” he says.
Along with fostering a healthy appreciation of safety standards, AIG, like so many in the industry, is also dealing with a changing workforce. “We have employees just entering the construction field, and that has required us to focus more on our interviewing and vetting process,” Chirafis explains. “This enables us to select the type of employee with the knowledge base and skill set required, and coincides with the type of safety performance we expect of our employees.”
Never too early
Such an approach includes encouraging younger people to learn a skilled trade properly so when they enter the job market, they have a foundation to support their development and growth. “We should all invest back into the youth so they’re prepared to take it to the next level,” Griffith says. “Then they’ve already learned some type of appreciation for a skilled trade such as welding or HVAC or auto mechanic skills. Train them for the future, because that’s our future workforce.”
As for AIG, its interviews comprise a three-step process with the actual superintendents who will be running the jobs. “Prospective employees have to make it through three different levels before we hire them,” says Griffith. “They may have applied for a millwright level 2 position, but by the completion of final evaluation, we may have to tell them, ‘You didn’t pass all the tests, and we’ll hire you for a lower level. We’ll work with you and bring you up to the skill required.’”
Those hired for a lower position are trained and allowed to retest for a higher position at a future date. “They might not quite be there yet, but we’ll help them get there, and we do that every day,” says Griffith.
Taking the time to work with employees and help them hone their skills has resulted in AIG finding some perfect fits over the years. “You take those individuals, you see their work ethic, hang onto and invest into them and build them for future, because those will be the individuals sitting in the office I’m sitting in right now.”
Betting on people
That dedication to patience and building for the future is one of the reasons AIG has managed to grow over the years from a “handful of people” to the large family that exists today.
“They’ve put their hearts and souls into this place and made us what we are today,” says Griffith. “When I acquired the company in 2017, we were doing $18 million a year, and we’re over $100 million a year now. That’s the hard work and dedication of all employees here.”
Even through the challenges of COVID and the current economy, it is AIG’s employees that have pulled the company up to where it is now and made it successful, he says.
“In my years of being in the business I think the one thing that sets us apart is the dedication of the ownership and management of this company,” Chirafis agrees. “We don’t just talk about these things and discuss them; we prove them every day in the way we conduct our business and the way Chris runs the business and supports his personnel.”
When you have that level of commitment and the expectations he holds for everyone in all aspects of the company—whether safety, quality, or production—it truly makes a difference from the top down, he says. “You don’t see that in a lot of companies, at least in my experience. We’re not just saying it, we’re living it every day.”
Griffith agrees. “Truly, our philosophy is we’re going to do the right thing even when no one’s looking.”
