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THE AWNING OF A NEW DAY
It was a dark and stormy night. But that didn't stop Acme Awning
from getting the job done. It never does. Among the most challenging projects tackled in recent
years by Acme Awning, San Leandro, Calif., was a pair of
barrel-style canopies extending above the entire length of the
brand new escalators at Pier 39, a popular waterfront tourist
attraction in San Francisco. In part what made this job so
daunting was the stormy weather rain and high winds that
frequently lashed the site. "Less than ideal conditions for
installation," says Acme Awning president Bill Fuller, who adds
that his company faced a further handicap in that the pier owner
would allow no work on the project between the hours of 9 a.m. and
9 p.m. "They wanted us to only be on site when the pier was closed
for the night."
Moreover, the project had to be completed within a specified
number of days so that the pier undergoing a facelift that
involved work by various other contractors would be ready on time
for a scheduled spring re-opening ceremony. Unfortunately, Acme
met with delay as a result of the escalator contractor running
into unexpected problems with his end of the job. "Since we
couldn't get started installing our canopies until he was
completed with the escalators, we were held back enough that we
really had to make an all-out effort to get our part done within
the allotted time," says Fuller. "And we did."
Amazingly, 90% of the field installation was handled by just two
people three, if you count the crewman who showed up periodically
to perform some welding. But it's exactly that kind of nimble
efficiency which typifies the work of Acme Awning. "We're
specialized in fabric awnings and canopies, and because of that we
maintain at a very high level the skills necessary to deliver a
quality job every time," says Fuller. "In fact, we're one of the
very few companies here in Northern California that still knows
how to fabricate the old-fashioned pipe-frame awnings that were
popular before today's big advances in welding technologies came
along."
CREATIVE FORCE
Acme makes commercial awnings, although focuses more on
residential product. From time to time, though, the company takes
on projects outside its field of specialization. For example, the
company was once asked to produce a cash-register cover 10,000
units in all for a major U.S. department store chain. And,
currently, it's making sand-snakes, which are 3-foot-long fabric
tubes filled with sand for use as weights to hold down the tenting
that covers homes and other structures undergoing fumigation.
Much of Acme's work requires no small amount of inventiveness.
Consider, as one illustration, the creativity needed to satisfy
one customer, a manufacturer of loudspeakers (the giant kind used
at outdoor concerts). "On the back of the speakers was an
electronics panel," Fuller explains. "To shield that panel from
rain, the speaker manufacturer was using a low-cost hood made of
injection molded plastic and screwed into position over the
electronics panel. While visiting Europe, officials of the company
saw at a concert some other firm's speakers that had been
outfitted with a rain hood made of fabric. This appealed to them
because, being fabric, the hood was collapsible.
"A collapsible hood would sit nearly flush with the rear of the
speaker box and thus allow the company's customers to much more
easily pack the speakers for transport from venue to venue. The
problem was the plastic rain hoods increased the amount of storage
space needed for each
speaker. Also, because the plastic hoods protruded, they were very
vulnerable to damage while the speakers were being moved from
place to place."
Although a fabric rain-hood promised to solve those problems, the
speaker manufacturer discovered that obtaining them from the
European source would be prohibitively expensive not just because of the shipping costs and tariffs, but because of the
way the hoods were designed. So the speaker manufacturer contacted Acme in the hope that
Fuller's company might be able to come up with a solution. "They
came to the right place," says Fuller. "Production manager Sandy
Holloway, head seamstress Lynn Qiu and I analyzed a sample of the
European fabric rain-hood and came up with a redesign that did
more than allow the hood to be produced here in the U.S.
affordably. It also represented a significant improvement over the
original in that it was easier to use and more durable."
The Acme-made hood turned out to be a bit more expensive than the
injection- molded plastic hood it replaced, but the speaker
manufacturer saved money in the long run by no longer having to
replace damaged hoods under warranty, since the fabric type rarely
suffered damage. Moreover, speaker owners were more satisfied and
that spelled good news for the speaker company.
LONG LINEAGE
Acme Awning opened for business in 1922. It was founded by Carl
Rawitzer, one of four sons
of A.H. Rawitzer, who, in 1912, was the first president of the
organization that later became the Industrial Fabrics Assn.
International. Interestingly, all four Rawitzer sons launched
awning companies that each went by the name Acme, although none
were related or connected. The Acme Awning started by Carl
Rawitzer was years later handed down to his own son and then sold
in 1972 to Ralph Beaver, a long-time employee. Beaver a
past-president of the Western Canvas Products Assn. retired in
1986 and sold the enterprise to Fuller. At that time, Fuller was a
newcomer to the awning trade. He had been on the payroll of aHong
Kong-based shipping company as a cost-control manager and decided
to buy Acme after realizing his opportunities for advancement with
the steamship line were severely limited.
"I looked at Acme, I liked it, so I bought it," Fuller says.
Casual observers thought he'd lost his senses for taking on such a
venture, given his lack of expertise with awnings. But, at 44,
Fuller was enough of an optimist to believe he could run Acme very
successfully and even take it to the next level. "I'd been in
management all my life," he tells. "I've got an MBA and I hold the
Navy's equivalent of a nuclear engineering degree. I figured with
those academic credentials, plus my skills in operations and
finance, I could do just about anything if I put my mind to it."
After acquiring the company, Fuller quickly moved to implement
policies and procedures that would help Acme Awning better serve its customers.
Today, Acme occupies a 6,500-square-foot building, divided into
three areas: a front office, a combination showroom and sewing shop, and a frame-making
shop. "In the sewing shop, we've built a large sewing table with
the sewing machines placed around the outer edges," Fuller
reports. "This allows us to lay out all but the very largest of
projects on the table, which means we get work done faster and
with greater accuracy."
This is not the same building that was home to Acme in the
beginning. Originally, the company was located in Oakland, then,
in 1976, it moved to a retail section of downtown San Leandro. "Back then, the business included a patio furniture store," says
Fuller. Five years after he took over the company, Fuller closed
the retail outlet and moved the production operation to an
industrial building a short distance away.
Visitors to the Acme plant often remark on how tidy a place it is.
"I really believe that a clean shop is a more productive shop,"
Fuller contends.. "Because things are so well organized around
here, we can locate needed materials and tools right away. The job
gets done faster and better."
AWARD-WINNERS
Being organized has helped Acme produce not just great awnings but
award-winners, such as the one built for Trellis restaurant (1st
place, commercial awnings category, 2002 Western Technical Fabrics
Expo) in Menlo Park, a city just south of San Francisco. "The
awning consisted of two curved sections with varying projections
and drops," Fuller describes. "One section floated in front of the
other. In addition, there were two horizontal steel accent pieces
that floated in front of the awning one of them floated between
the two awning sections while three vertical steel pieces floated
between the two steel accent pieces. "One of the curved sections
had a radius of more than 40 feet; the other was almost as big.
And the projection of the awning went from 0 to 4 feet." "The
biggest challenge to this project was in the sewing room getting
it laid out was difficult because of the size of the radii. Trying
to get the fabric onto the two frame sections without getting a
bunch of wrinkles especially as it went down to the zero
projection took quite a bit of creative work on the part of the
seamstresses."
Then, there was the site installation. Not exactly a cakewalk.
"The exterior wall of the restaurant was flagstone," he says.
"That's not the best surface for mounting an awning. The biggest
challenge was getting a smooth line. We had to use longer lags and
we had to mount our z-brackets loosely, then suck it in because of
that lack of a perfectly flat surface."
Another award-winning project (2nd place, solar screens category,
2003 Western Technical Fabrics Expo), was a shade system installed
at an upscale home with a great view in the Bay Area, the Coll
residence. "The Coll residence had an open-air porch that received
too much direct sun and faced the path usually taken by storms,"
Fuller says. "Rain and wind would come onto the porch. Mr. and
Mrs. Coll wanted to cut down on that. But they didn't want to
erect a shield of any kind that would block the great view they
had." Unfortunately, the design characteristics of the home were
such that a standardized, off-the-shelf awning wouldn't work. "Whatever custom solution we came up with, the requirement was
that it had to be as unobtrusive as possible," Fuller notes. "It
had to complement the aesthetics of the property." It was a tall
bill to fill and an interesting challenge.
"We worked with our supplier EGE Systems Sun Control who provided
components from their various products, and from those we were
then able to craft a unique screen system that fit perfectly and
very attractively into the space available," says Fuller. "In
other words, the solution used standard parts, but not the parts
that would be standard for any single EGE Systems Sun Control
product. Also, there was very scant mounting space to work with.
So we had to fabricate a customized bracket to put into the wall.
The bracket was designed by my lead installer, Brian Carrell."
Even the canopy project at Pier 39 won an award for Acme (3rd
place, commercial canopies
category, 1999 Western Technical Fabrics Expo). "The canopies
started about 8 feet in front of the escalator and went up at a
30- degree angle the same pitch as that of the escalator all the
way to the top and then extended 8 feet beyond that," Fuller
describes. "Both canopies employed flame-retardant Arctic Blue
Firesist fabric, and were supported by 6-inch-square steel posts
double the norm for a project like this.
Not only were the posts thicker than usual, we also used more of
them than we might have otherwise in a similar installation
elsewhere. For further structural integrity, we welded
cross-members between the posts underneath the escalator, in an
area where visitors to the pier would not walk. These were
necessary because the location is a high-velocity wind area. "A
portion of one canopy mounted to a concrete structure on the pier,
while the remaining section attached to the pier's wood frame. The
second canopy was mounted solely into the wood frame.
"In order to reach the structural members of the pier and be able
to bolt the posts, we first had to take off some fairly expensive
decorative wood flooring that the pier owner had already
installed," says Fuller. "And, for one of the canopies, it was
necessary to use a boom lift to carry it over a building that
stood in the way."
THEY GET AROUND
The canopies project was one of a long string of projects Acme
handled for the pier owner. "We don't just confine ourselves to
San Leandro we do commercial projects throughout most of the San
Francisco Bay Area," says Fuller. "If the job is within the Bay
Area but the architect is outside that area, we rely heavily on e-mail,
overnight package deliveries and other telecommunications
technologies to consult and develop the design of the project,
with recommendations on how to spec and fabricate the job.
"If the job is outside the Bay Area, we can still lend our
expertise as a project consultant or we can coordinate services as
appropriate with fabricators and installers near the actual job
site. We can also provide reliable referrals for architects who
prefer to work with someone local, since our contacts with
top-quality professionals in the awnings industry are extensive." |
