February 29, 2008

MILLER NORTHWEST LTD.

From its start at an asphalt plant, as seen below, to its finish as part of roadway being paved as shown in the photo above, Miller earned top honours at this year’s awards night.

Paver of the Year Miller Northwest takes outstanding honour

Hwy. 17 project led to stellar nomination

PETER KENTER

correspondent

TORONTO

Miller Northwest Limited took home top honours at the Ontario Ministry of Transportation’s (MTO) Paver of The Year Awards, presented at the annual convention of the Ontario Road Builders’ Association (ORBA).

The company won the award for its outstanding work on a $10-million contract paving 16 kilometres of Highway 17, east from English River Bridge.

“We considered a number of factors, including the overall mix quality, smoothness, surface appearance, joint construction and overall complexity of the work,” says Tony Tuinstra a construction engineer with the Contract Management Office at MTO. “One thing that struck me about the job was the longitudinal joints were overall very well constructed. Miller did a good job in terms of the overall quality of the mix as well as achieving a very good smoothness. We were also impressed with the overall mat uniformity; there was little if any segregation.”

The section of road lies on one of two highways linking Thunder Bay with Western Canada, so the crews encountered a high volume of traffic while completing the work from May to October last year.

“We received about twice as much rainfall as we expected for the month of September,” says Ross Reynolds, general manager of Miller Northwest, who accepted the award. “The asphalt aggregate stockpiles became heavily saturated to the point that in order to maintain daily plant production, we had to schedule a night shift to dry fine aggregates using the Cedar Rapids asphalt plant. If we hadn’t implemented these measures, the plant production would have become inconsistent and these variations would have been reflected in the final mix. The rainfall, coupled with rapidly decreasing hours of daylight, required that every part of the paving operations had to be completed at an optimum level to ensure maximum quality.”

Reynolds also credits sub-contractors Gilbertson Enterprises Ltd., Moncrief Construction Ltd. and Jim Clarida and Sons with exceptional teamwork and communication skills.

Rob Bradford, executive director of ORBA, says that the awards are a solid motivator for member contractors. “I think that on some of the larger projects, some of the companies realize the project is looking pretty sweet and say to themselves, ‘let’s make damned sure to finish up nicely,’” he says.

“Our members look forward to the awards for weeks and weeks before the convention. They’re practically bribing us to find out who the winners are. When their name gets called out, it generates a great feeling of pride.”

Miller Paving was also one of four finalists for its work on Highway 655 north of Highway 101. The other finalists were R.W. Tomlinson Ltd. for the Highway 60 Barry’s Bay project, and Dufferin Construction Company for Highway 403 from Hamilton/Brant boundary to Brantford project.

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