Specialty Welding and Turnarounds (SWAT) has a new look and a new office that covers over 12,000 square feet. But even with all these additions and changes, SWAT remains an elite turnaround company that still completes its projects safely, on time and anywhere, while also delivering top-notch quality and excellent service.
“2017 was certainly an exciting year for us,” said Johnny Holifield, president of SWAT. “SWAT has transitioned from a specialty services company to a complete, full-scale turnaround provider.”
According to Holifield, SWAT has combined its specialty welding services with its main mechanical services to give clients the opportunity to have one go-to contractor.
“This is also advantageous from a cost perspective because it co-mingles the indirect supervision when managing a project,” Holifield said. “Our customers don’t have two different sets of supervision with two separate contractors. SWAT can push/pull resources seamlessly between crews if work isn’t available in certain areas. This efficiency cuts costs for our customers and also helps maintain schedules due to lack of downtime.”
Because of its phenomenal growth over the past three years, SWAT recently moved into a new building in Gonzales, Louisiana, more than four times the size of its former location.
“This new building benefits SWAT in many ways,” Holifield said. “We incorporated a 10-ton overhead crane, three drive-thru bays, and additional yard space for tool trailers and extractor equipment. At our new office, we can also make exchanger repairs and fabricate piping, tubes and coils.”
The new office consists of 12,600 square feet with 14 offices and an additional 6,400 square feet of unfinished office space on the second floor. SWAT now has a new office and a new look, but its pillars of safety, quality, leadership and integrity remain the same.
Pillar No. 1: Safety
SWAT makes safety the most important part of every task it performs. Using a top-down safety approach, SWAT’s leaders ensure their teams are equipped with the best safety equipment for the job and that they’re doing absolutely everything to stay safe. This approach worked in 2017, with SWAT working more than 1.35 million man-hours with a TRIR of .14.
“Our safety record is much better than the industry standard,” Holifield said. “But each year, we strive for ‘Goal Zero’ — zero recordables and lost-time incidents. To do this, we communicate near-misses and any first-aid cases on a daily basis. This communication provides awareness of potential incidents or injuries that can occur and allows us to put controlled preventative measurements in place to eliminate these events. We recognize any hazards in the planning stages before tasks or work begin, using SWAT’s behavior-based safety system and our clients’ auditing processes. ”
SWAT’s success with safety starts with its hiring process, in which the company obtains the most experienced supervision and craftsmen to perform the work.
“In addition, we make a constant effort to develop a positive safety culture on all our jobsites,” Holifield said. “We do this by giving our employees the proper training, tools and job plans.”
Pillar No. 2: Quality
Since SWAT started in 2015, the company has completed several major turnkey projects, with some projects involving up to 350,000 man-hours. Every project SWAT has completed has been to the highest quality, and the company stands by its work. In 2017, SWAT made over 75,000 welds with a less than 2-percent weld rejection rate.
“We take pride in performing at an elite level,” Holifield said. “It all starts with the expectation that when you are employed by SWAT, you have been hand-picked and selected to work for the most elite, best-ofthe- best contractor in the country. Our standards are very high, and I like to think they are higher than most companies out there.”
In 2017, SWAT’s mechanical division worked on approximately 200 different jobs.
SWAT’s work quality is also demonstrated on every jobsite. For example, SWAT completed a large mechanical job in 2017 where the company pulled 84 exchangers, opened and tunneled 12 towers, and demolished and replaced approximately 7,000 feet of piping. SWAT also performed 4,300 total welds on this project, with a less than 2-percent rejection rate. Most importantly, SWAT had zero injuries or recordables during this work that involved more than 130,000 man-hours.
Pillar No. 3: Leadership
According to Holifield, having a strong and experienced management foundation is what puts SWAT above the rest. Most of the company’s supervision has been with SWAT since its inception.
“This is a key ingredient to our success,” Holifield said. “These guys are the generals in the field who lead our employees to deliver successful projects. These leaders earn their employees’ respect because their actions are an example of how we want everyone else to perform. The way things should be done starts with me and the rest of our management and then trickles down to each craftsman. Everyone at SWAT understands the work needs to be done on time, completed to SWAT’s elite standards and that safety is of the utmost importance.”
Pillar No. 4: Integrity
When it comes to SWAT’s integrity, the company’s employees work hard, take pride in everything they do and always act professionally.
“We are honest and trustworthy people who our customers can depend on,” Holifield said. “When we look our customers in the eye and make commitments to them, it all means something to us at SWAT. We stand behind what we tell them we can achieve, and we will go above and beyond for that commitment. We also do everything we can to be good stewards for our customers when it comes to costs and money on a job. We treat a customer’s jobsite as if it were our own facility.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about being the best at what you do. This is why our growth has tripled. People see the SWAT name and our new logo, but they know what they’re getting.”
For more information, visit www.swatservice.com or call (225) 644-1200
