What’s your lead time? Seems like a simple question, but there are quite a few details that go into it.

Precast concrete is known for the speed at which it can be erected, but do you know when to order your precast concrete products to ensure you have them for your just in time delivery? At Mid-States Concrete Industries, our goal is to keep our customers’ projects on-time, on-budget, and on-target. Getting Mid-States Concrete involved early on in the design process can help you do just that.

During the design phase, it is important to keep in contact with our Preconstruction team to keep updated on lead times. When discussing a potential project, the best we can provide is the current lead time at that moment. Internally, that means our team communicates daily about projects, openings in the production schedule, and what projects we anticipate we’ll be awarded in both the short-term and long-term that would impact the production schedule.

When it comes to ordering your precast, it is important that the structural design of the building is determined first. It is helpful to know which precast products will be needed on your project, so we can help narrow down lead times by specific product. Production time varies from product to product, depending on the projects we are working on at that time. While we are generally able to refer to our typical lead times on our beam, column, and hollowcore product lines, our wall panel schedule generally has longer lead times than beam, columns, or hollowcore due to the more involved manufacturing process.

Since many of our customers have used precast before, the importance of getting a spot in the schedule is something they are relatively familiar with. Mid-States Concrete will only hold production space for a customer once we have been awarded a project. Again, when Mid-States Concrete is brought on to a project early, we are able to track lead times and are able to keep our customers updated on what the production schedule looks like if they were to award us a contract at that time, versus two weeks from then (as an example).

Knowing the construction industry is fluid, to ensure you have Mid-States Concrete precast around your desired delivery dates, we encourage an open line of communication leading up to the awarding of the project. To learn how we can help with your next project, contact our Preconstruction team at sales@msprecast.com.