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Your Plant Doesn't Stop. Neither Do We.

Most of CR Meyer's work happens inside facilities that are still running, where production equipment is operating, personnel are present, live systems are energized, and an unplanned shutdown is measured in lost revenue, not just project delay. We've built our model around that reality.

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What Makes Construction in an Active Industrial Facility Different?

Working in an operating industrial facility is not the same as working on a standard construction site. The differences are significant, and the consequences of underestimating them are real.

In a live industrial environment, a contractor must manage:

Operating production equipment

Running nearby, often immediately adjacent to the work scope.
Operating production equipment

Energized systems

Electrical, hydraulic, steam, and process systems that cannot simply be de-energized without coordination.
Energized systems

Active personnel

Facility employees whose safety and workflow cannot be disrupted.
Active personnel

Production schedules

Where even a brief, unplanned stoppage translates to measurable revenue loss.
Production schedules

Facility safety protocols

Lockout/tagout, permitting, confined space, and other requirements that vary by facility and must be followed without exception.
Facility safety protocols

Constrained Access and Logistics

Limited staging areas, narrow delivery windows, and heavy lifts that must be planned around active production schedules.
Constrained Access and Logistics

A contractor who doesn't account for all of these variables from the first day of planning is a contractor who will create problems your facility cannot afford.

How Does CR Meyer Minimize Production Impact During Active Facility Work?

Before any CR Meyer crew arrives on site, our project team works directly with your operations and maintenance team. The most important thing CR Meyer does in a live facility happens before work begins.

Pre-Project Planning

We work directly with your team to:

  • Identify all active systems, energized equipment, and personnel areas adjacent to the work scope
  • Develop a detailed hazard assessment and control plan specific to your facility
  • Establish permitting requirements, lockout/tagout protocols, and emergency response procedures
  • Map construction activities against your production schedule to minimize interference
  • Define clear communication channels between CR Meyer field leadership and your operations team
Pre-Project Planning

Shift-Aware Scheduling

CR Meyer structures work schedules around your production priorities, not ours. That means:

  • Coordinating high-impact work during planned low-production periods or maintenance windows
  • Phasing construction activities to protect adjacent operations from disruption
  • Maintaining flexibility to respond when production priorities change
Shift-Aware Scheduling

Communication That Keeps Your Team Informed

Production leaders cannot manage what they don't know. CR Meyer's project teams maintain consistent, proactive communication with your operations and facility leadership throughout the project — so you’re never surprised by what is happening on your site.
Communication That Keeps Your Team Informed

This preparation is not a formality; it’s the foundation of every successful active facility project CR Meyer has executed.

Self-Performance

Why Does Self-Performance Matter More in an Active Facility?

In a live industrial environment, subcontractor variability isn’t just an inconvenience — it’s a safety and operational risk.

A subcontractor crew that:

  • Hasn’t been trained to CR Meyer's standards
  • Doesn’t know the facility's layout, systems, or operational priorities
  • Isn’t aligned with your safety culture and facility expectations

… introduces unpredictable variables into an environment where unpredictability has serious consequences.

CR Meyer's self-perform model eliminates that variable. Every crew on a CR Meyer active facility project is CR Meyer's own, trained to the same standards, aligned to the same safety culture, and familiar with the facility-specific requirements established during pre-project planning. The result is a crew that behaves like they belong in your facility — because by the time they arrive, they already understand it.

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Active Facility Experience Across Our Core Industries

Most of CR Meyer's long-term client relationships are built in environments where the facility never fully stops. The industries below represent where that experience runs deepest — and where the consequences of contractor missteps are most immediate.

Trusted in the Most Demanding Operating Environments

CR Meyer has been executing construction and maintenance work in live industrial environments for more than 135 years. The clients who trust us with their most sensitive active facility work are the same clients who have worked with us for decades — because they know what to expect when CR Meyer is on site.

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proof that holds up in the field

Complex doesn't intimidate us. Active facilities, tight shutdowns, multi-trade coordination, high-stakes capital projects … this is the work we're built for.

Working in Active Facilities

Expansion of Converting Capacity with 4 New Production Lines

Our pulp and paper customer needed to expand their converting capacity with four new production lines — and needed a contractor who could coordinate complex, multi-system installations with precision, on time and on budget.

CBC Converting Lines
Expansion of Converting Capacity with 4 New Production Lines

Working in Active Facilities

New Higher-Capacity Powerhouse

Our hydro/power customer needed to replace aging generating units at their Iron Mountain hydroelectric facility with a modern, higher-capacity powerhouse — a $64 million project that combined heavy civil construction, precision turbine installation, and complex waterfront work on an active energy site.

New Higher-Capacity Powerhouse
New Higher-Capacity Powerhouse

"The installation was seamless and did not interfere with our production. Your employees were exceptional and easy to work with."

Manufacturing Customer

Frequently Asked Questions

How does CR Meyer plan construction work in a facility that's still operating?
Active facility planning starts with understanding what the facility cannot afford to lose: which production lines, which utilities, which access points, and which safety boundaries are non-negotiable. CR Meyer builds the project plan around those constraints before sequencing begins, which means the work is designed to fit the operating environment rather than requiring the facility to accommodate the construction.
What safety protocols does CR Meyer follow in active industrial facilities?
Work in active facilities introduces hazards that don't exist in idle ones — live equipment, moving vehicles, process chemicals, and personnel from multiple organizations sharing the same space. CR Meyer's protocols for active facility work include lockout/tagout, hot work permitting, defined exclusion zones, and continuous coordination with facility safety teams. Those protocols are established before work begins and enforced throughout.
Can CR Meyer perform construction work during planned shutdowns and outages?
Yes. Planned shutdowns and outages are a core part of CR Meyer's project work. They plan outage scopes around fixed return-to-service dates, sequencing trades and pre-positioning materials to use the available window completely. Self-performing critical trades means the sequencing decisions that determine whether an outage finishes on time stay inside the project team.
How does CR Meyer protect production schedules during active facility projects?
Production schedule protection starts in the planning phase and continues through daily project execution. CR Meyer coordinates with facility operations throughout the project, adjusting work sequences when production needs shift and making real-time decisions that keep both the construction and the facility moving forward. Because the trades involved are self-performed, those decisions don't require negotiation with outside contractors.
Why is self-performing trades important for active facility construction?
In active facilities, conditions change and decisions have to be made quickly. When a contractor self-performs trades, the authority to adjust sequencing, shift crews, and respond to field conditions rests inside the project team. Subcontracted trades introduce a coordination layer that slows that response which, in an active facility, can mean production impact, safety exposure, or schedule loss that a more integrated team would have avoided.

Have Work That Needs to Happen While Your Facility Keeps Running?

Let's talk about the scope, the environment, and how CR Meyer can execute it without disrupting what matters most: your production.

Whether you're planning a capital project, a scheduled outage, or ongoing maintenance in an operating facility, CR Meyer has the planning discipline, the experienced crews, and the coordination model to handle it. Tell us about your project and we'll put the right team together.

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