What does “collaboration” mean to you? Learn how we can collaborate with you to manufacture the steel joists and deck your projects need.
Depending on where you work within the construction process, collaboration has a different meaning.
For owners and developers, collaboration means partnering with a trusted supplier to leverage purchasing power, secure favorable structural steel pricing, and ensure reliable delivery throughout North America.
For Engineers of Record (EORs), collaboration means having a trusted resource who shares their technical expertise and can make suggestions based on the project design.
And for fabricators, erectors, and general contractors, collaboration is all about support and supply chain flexibility. Construction schedules can experience delays for a variety of reasons, so field crews need to rely on partners who can synchronize material delivery with real-time project needs.
New Millennium earns clients’ trust by collaborating with them at every phase of the construction process.
By working with EORs during the design phase of construction, New Millennium can provide technical guidance to define the steel joist and deck solutions for their projects.
Architects develop conceptual ideas for structures, and EORs are charged with making these ideas possible. However, they may not understand how their decisions affect the design of the steel joists and deck they’ll need to construct their buildings.
By bringing New Millennium into the early stages of the design phase, our engineers can assess how much load those decisions will add to their structures, which in turn impacts the design of the steel deck and joists they require.
“The engineer will give us a certain set of information,” New Millennium Sales Manager Darien Shannon, P.E., said. “We’ll analyze it and come up with different options. So, if we work together, we’re able to come up with the best solution for the customer.”
Loading the player...
For example, New Millennium was brought into the planning stages early on to collaborate on the structural steel roof and floor deck for the new Ryan Field football stadium for Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
New Millennium earned this project on the strength of our specialty coating capabilities, and LeJeune Steel Company leaned on our expertise. As the structural steel fabricator for the project, LeJeune Steel Company relied on the architectural deck team at the New Millennium facility in Memphis, Tennessee. The Memphis facility manufactures decking for structural and architectural applications. Memphis is also one of the few applicators that offers a triple-pass coating system, a key differentiator in the market.
By applying the coatings in the factory, there was no need to erect scaffolding for dangerous field painting. The coatings also protect the deck from the elements Ryan Field will encounter from the Midwest’s extreme weather conditions.
New Millennium collaborated with Ponce-Fuess Engineering, LLC, on an addition to North Dallas High School in Dallas, Texas. The project called for a gymnasium that met the requirements for a storm shelter, which required an innovative design that utilized New Millennium composite joists and deck.
The result is a structure that is ICC 500 compliant, which means it has been engineered to withstand wind speeds of up to 250 miles per hour and 100 psf of live load.
New Millennium engineered and produced the composite joists that played a huge role in the construction of this storm shelter. These joists create a stronger, stiffer, lighter, and less expensive steel structure when compared to other structural steel frame approaches.
The crown jewels – structurally speaking – of this storm shelter are 82-inch-deep composite joists that span an impressive 116 feet and are topped with a composite cellular acoustical deck.
New Millennium works with owners, developers, and builders from the outset of large-scale projects to ensure they have the right structural steel where they need it and when they need it.
Engaging our team early allows New Millennium to make recommendations that can help prevent delays and avoid unnecessary costs. Through collaboration, our team can quickly identify challenges or opportunities within a project’s scope of work from start to finish.
“For steel joists and deck, we’re making recommendations to cure pain points at every stage, and that’s vital to ensuring structural integrity and meeting tight timelines,” said Dan Longstreth, Strategic Account Sales Manager at New Millennium. “For the end user, speed to market is speed to revenue.”
Every project has different requirements for performance, cost, time, efficiency, scalability, and more. New Millennium can offer a range of long-span composite floor or roof systems that address these requirements. But first, our team collaborates with the project team to understand its goals before making recommendations.
“Our engineers grasp the scope and then explore the most economical design,” said Jill Engerman, National Accounts Project Manager at New Millennium. “For instance, they might suggest integrating some of our steel deck accessories so there’s less cutting in the field. Then we’ll work together on other opportunities to streamline, such as maximizing loads and staging deliveries to the site.”
Owners and developers benefit from collaborating with New Millennium long before the shovel hits ground on their national rollout programs. New Millennium can procure the steel needed for joist and deck production early in the construction phase to secure pricing and availability for construction programs that extend throughout North America.
Early collaboration with New Millennium changes how reliably your projects are executed. Our experts bring market intelligence directly to owners and developers, so their procurement teams can utilize volume-based purchasing power instead of relying on the whims of traditional supply chains and open-bid processes.
Our National Accounts team secures your structural steel supply, delivering it to the field where and when you need it, with pricing you can plan around. And with facilities located throughout North America, we can efficiently provide steel joists and deck for projects wherever they’re built.
Collaboration enable the reduction of massive amounts of structural steel through the use of steel joist and joist girders in place of wide-flange beams.
Our sales engineers can guide EORs in making structural substitutions, as well. For example, choosing steel joists instead of steel beams for a project’s structural steel system can cut costs and time – and our experts can show project designers how to make this happen.
Since joists are engineered and fabricated to a project’s requirements, it’s imperative to collaborate with a sales engineer from New Millennium to determine your project’s specific requirements. Even though joists are fabricated to custom project specifications, lead times are typically equal to or less than that of beams, as joist materials are already in stock at the fabricator.
Our steel joists and deck can be delivered in stages when field crews are ready for them. We’re not just collaborative – we’re flexible, as well. Scott Heinsohn, PNW Area Manager for Panelized Structures, Inc., has experienced this firsthand.
Heinsohn has come to rely on New Millennium to deliver steel joists directly to the job site where they need them when his crews are ready for them. Our delivery teams give them the truck counts and the exact times the trucks will arrive. And if delays happen on the job site that throw off the schedule, Heinsohn knows New Millennium can push back deliveries until his crews are back on track.
“New Millennium will give us the product when we ask for it and in the order that we need it, which is very helpful for the guys out in the field,” Heinsohn said. “When changes happen on the job site, and I have to change my deliveries, they understand that process, so it makes my job a lot easier.”
Collaboration also means getting complex jobs done right the first time. For Sphere in Las Vegas, Nevada, New Millennium’s extensive long-span deck experience proved to be an invaluable resource for the construction team.
An established relationship with W&W | AFCO Steel, the fabricator selected for Sphere, helped New Millennium land this project. We had previously worked with W&W | AFCO on the Las Vegas Convention Center, which also features complex designs for its sloping “ice cone” shaped roof deck. We also partnered with W&W | AFCO Steel on Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, which features a single-panel retractable roof.
For Sphere, the New Millennium detailing team produced several field-use drawings and coordinated directly with the structural detailers on product deck layout and installation. New Millennium also coordinated the shipping of the deck from Memphis to Las Vegas for delivery and sequencing at the site, which had a small staging yard.
“That’s what really sets us apart. We get very engaged,” said Bob Hudson, General Manager of the Memphis plant. “It’s a level of passion that makes us much more than a supplier on a project.”
Rafik Gerges, Principal, HSA & Associates, Inc.,and Darien Shannon, P.E., Sales Manager at New Millennium discuss how changes in loading conditions may affect joist design.
New Millennium has a team of sales engineers who speak the same technical language as consulting engineers. This differentiation lets us serve not only as consultants during the design phase of projects, but also to accept feedback on steel joists and deck.
Relationships like this develop over time, with consulting engineers reaching out to sales engineers with questions. Rafik Gerges, Principal, HSA & Associates, Inc., has developed such relationships with the team at New Millennium to receive timely answers on joist and deck questions during the initial design of new projects.
“It’s a two-way process. We want to understand their product well so we can spec it in the right way,” Gerges said. “We also want to let them know what we need from their product now and in the future.”
That two-way process includes discussing every detail of our steel joists and deck and the client’s applications. Whether it’s spans, loads, global and local behavior, or tension control, every characteristic of our steel joists and deck is on the table.
And it doesn’t just benefit New Millennium and our clients – the steel construction industry benefits from the improvements that come from these discussions.
“In this process, we can learn a lot from each other and keep pushing the industry forward,” Gerges said. “New Millennium has taken the sales process to a very technical level. They can present info in scientific and technical ways that are very appealing to the engineer. They’re willing to engage in a technical discussion, take feedback on the product, and listen to specific challenges the engineers face. We don’t see this level of interaction from other joist suppliers.”
New Millennium’s ability to collaborate with clients can save projects dealing with unexpected challenges, as well.
On a large-scale project in northern Ohio, New Millennium supplied steel joists, joist girders, and steel deck for the 715,000-square-foot structure. SteelFab, Inc., the steel fabrication contractor for the job, encountered a potential issue while coordinating work with the fire sprinkler subcontractor.
There was concern that the original design of the joists couldn’t support the loads associated with the fire sprinkler system. New Millennium Project Manager Josh Bozzi jumped into action to recalibrate the design.
“Josh made sure that what we had designed, and [what] was currently in fabrication, could support what was going to be installed by the fire sprinkler sub down the line,” SteelFab Project Manager Katie McMurry said. “The quick actions by Josh involved his engineer working directly with the sprinkler sub, and we were able to get on a call within a few days and iron it out.”
New Millennium also took on shaping the canopy atop Northwestern University’s new Ryan Field. The inner and outer edges of the canopy roof required a segmented deck edge cut to within a tolerance of 1/8-inch minimum to ¼-inch maximum from the grid arc to create a rounded look.
Project Lead Scott Sliva marked up his CAD drawings down to these precise measurements so the field team could cut the deck onsite to create the implied curvature in the roof deck. The challenging part of this solution was the inner corners of the stadium. Sliva said he had to cut some segments down to less than a foot. And all of this had to be accomplished in time for field crews to move on to the next section.
New Millennium is committed to building success by collaborating with clients to help them achieve greater outcomes. Whether you’re an owner, developer, architect, engineer, general contractor, fabricator, or erector, New Millennium will collaborate with you to optimize the process, solutions, and outcome of your project.
Contact your local technical resource team to discuss your project.
A major technology company collaborated with our dedicated data center team to support their hyperscaler projects throughout the United States, utilizing our steel joist and deck expertise.
There has always been a debate about the benefits of using steel beams instead of steel joists. Beams often win the battle of steel components, but it’s often due to some misinformation in the construction industry regarding joists.
Building a better steel experience
