Imagine an environment where the things that matter most are never at the mercy of the things that matter least. At JV Driver, the thing that matters most is the ability to deliver value to its clients and great success in every project the group takes on.
At JV Driver, you’ll find every employee thinks “outside the box,” striving for continuous improvement and embracing innovation. For more than 25 years, JV Driver has provided industrial construction, turnaround and fabrication services, and today’s group carries a history of proven results in the oil and gas, energy, petrochemical, forestry, mining and manufacturing sectors. JV Driver has a commitment to excellence in safety, quality and productivity, which is taken even further through its Once Right approach. Due to its teamwork, ingenuity and commitment, customers keep coming back to experience the JV Driver difference.
Since 1989, the JV Driver Group has constructed some of the most challenging and complex projects in the world. With offices across North America, its deep experience and expertise in all key industrial sectors has allowed JV Driver to successfully deliver projects for leading players. A leading project planning strategy, comprehensive safety program, a culture that strives for continuous improvement and embracing innovation are all things that shape the framework of the JV Driver organization.
JV Driver’s services are as diverse as they are extensive, and its industrial experience spans several industries and regions. The group is currently working primarily in the U.S. and Canada and is building its density, depth and bandwidth in those areas. Whether it’s oil and gas, power, pulp and paper, or the manufacturing industry, JV Driver has a presence in these areas and will continue to build its work capacity.
Experts on workface planning
There are a number of factors that have contributed to the success of JV Driver. Chief among them is its reliance on workface planning (WFP). WFP is the keystone in the foundation of the firm. Today, WFP is implemented in every project the group builds.
“We find our best-planned projects are not only our safest projects but also our most financially rewarding projects,” said Todd Robinson, president of JV Driver USA. “Ultimately, what has enabled JV Driver to exponentially grow to over $1 billion in revenue is ‘planning the work.’ WFP has allowed us to build great things. We have achieved high performance levels with a small number of people doing great work. We pride ourselves on building great teams.”
For example, JV Driver’s effective WFP programs used in the constructability phase shrank a turbine building by 75 percent, saving its client millions in construction and one month of schedule.
World-class facilities
Flexibility coupled with a strong track record, particularly in safety, gives JV Driver a unique offering in the market. In the industrial sector, the group provides all facets of fabrication, civil, construction and plant maintenance capabilities in the oil and gas, chemical, mining, forestry, power and marine sectors. JV Driver provides these capabilities through its companies: JV Driver Projects, JV Driver Fabricators, IDL Projects, TIS, and DF Barnes and DFB Driver.
In each of these sectors and entities, the JV Driver Group has the capabilities, capacity, geographic reach and track record to provide high-value solutions to clients’ most complex and challenging needs, regardless of location. Successful projects range from large mining and extraction facilities to the largest and most advanced steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) recovery and power production installations. In executing this work, JV Driver has led the way in construction innovation, including flexible labor strategies, construction execution and safety performance.
With over 420,000 square feet of fabrication space, coupled with 100 acres for module erection and locations in Edmonton, Houston, Phoenix and Newfoundland, JV Driver offers a capability and geographic reach that can address all your fabrication needs.
“In Phoenix, JV Driver created an operation that mirrors our existing facility in Alberta,” said Corey Callahan, vice president of JV Driver Fabricators. “The shop has the ability to pass 20,000 metric tons annually through the steel shop, along with 350,000-400,000 inches of pipe through the pipe shop. This facility is truly world-class and allows JV Driver to execute its fabrication work safely, efficiently and on schedule.”
The Houston facility, which primarily focuses on specialty welding in support of its construction services, features 30,000 square feet of pipe fabrication capacity and puts out approximately 300,000 inches of pipe annually.
Through the hard work of its exceptional people, JV Driver has a proven track record of performing across all industry sectors globally. JV Driver offers the same approach, top-tiered staffing and quality work for every project in every country, province and port to ensure its reliability, authenticity and valued relationships with each client.
Taking care of its team
In an environment where competition for the right people at the right time is fierce, JV Driver has a unique advantage over others. JV Driver has used a world-class safety program to attract and retain the right people at the right time in the right numbers.
The group’s team consists of long-term employees who have now made a home with JV Driver. With more than 53 million hours of no lost-time incidents and accident-free, JV Driver’s core value of team members taking care of each other translates to one of the best safety records in North America.
“Safety is not viewed as a concept but a core value of taking care of each other,” Robinson said. “To be successful at JV Driver, you must believe there is no good reason to put people at risk. Our safety program — whether it’s in the field, in the JV Driver fabrication facility in Houston or at the JV Driver fabrication facility in Phoenix — ensures everyone goes home to their families at the end of the day in the same state as they came. With strong support and programming from our entire business group, JV Driver’s safety record is impeccable: JV Driver has logged over 53 million man-hours without a lost-time incident.
“At JV Driver, we are also fanatical planners. If we have a poor safety record, we’re not planning very well. We really put a lot of focus into our work planning. And today, according to our most recent statistics, we’re at 0.01 for our total recordable incident rate, which is world-class in the industry.”
JV Driver has an integrated safety program called “Vigilance,” which incorporates a thorough on-boarding training process for all new hires and the use of E-Tracker technology to aid workers and supervision in increasing the number of interventions per jobsite so recordable incidents are prevented altogether. E-Tracker allows for real-time project data to be accessed by supervisory staff so adjustments at the workface level can be made immediately if necessary. Employees earn different rewards for completing intervention submissions, and the program has proven an integral part of jobsite culture.
Innovative, trusted global alliances
JV Driver is taking innovative concepts like radio-frequency identification (RFID) and additional cutting-edge ideas from other industries to bring higher levels of safety and efficiency to the petrochemical construction industry. This technology recently helped JV Driver win numerous projects, from multiple billion-dollar oil sands projects in Alberta, Canada, to a 10-year lump-sum corrosion control contract in Texas and Louisiana.
One of JV Driver’s proudest accomplishments is working with Intelliwave Technologies to win the Bentley “Be Inspired” Award for Innovation in Construction. Charged with expanding a major oil sands operation in northern Alberta, JV Driver faced numerous challenges that would have made the successful, on-time completion of the project difficult if not impossible without the creative implementation of a number of true industry innovations.
To overcome these barriers, JV Driver turned to Intelliwave Technologies to create an innovative solution that would allow it to leverage technology to successfully complete the project using fewer crew members than usual. Working closely with JV Driver, the two companies responded to the challenge and developed the revolutionary integration of Bentley’s ConstructSim workface planning software with Intelliwave SiteSense® RFID sensor technology to enable the successful installation of more than 200,000 linear feet of pipe and the facility’s tagged equipment pieces.
JV Driver is also an active participant or member in several industry associations. These include the AWP Conference, Engineering and Construction Contracting (ECC) Association, Construction Users Roundtable (CURT®), Economic Alliance Houston Port Region, Louisiana Chemical Industry Alliance (LCIA) and Texas Chemical Council (TCC).
"JV Driver has been a champion for advanced work packaging since before it had momentum here in the United States,” said Lloyd Rankin, president of Ascension Systems Inc., which hosts the AWP Conference each year. “Their involvement with the global AWP Conference since its inception in Houston in 2014 has been invaluable. JV Driver Group has consistently given time, resources and financial support to the conference in furtherance of the big-picture goal of shifting the construction industry toward AWP. I am proud to work alongside Todd Robinson and his team as we build our agenda for 2018 and the years to come.”
When Covestro’s Baytown, Texas, Industrial Park was looking for additional contractors approximately two years ago, Covestro chose JV Driver to add to its list. In the beginning, JV Driver completed lump-sum structural steel, insulation, painting and scaffolding capital projects. Covestro was very satisfied with this work and has allowed JV Driver to compete for other lump-sum jobs.
“JV Driver is now one of our premier contractors, where the group performs all disciplines of work on-site,” said Rick Rashall, group head of construction and turnaround management, Covestro. “JV Driver understands the rules of lump-sum work and completes it on time. The group stays in the plant year-round, completing numerous projects simultaneously. These projects range in scope from piping and mechanical to structural and civil, instrumental and electrical. JV Driver has performed well on all of them to date.
“Two areas where JV Driver shines are its safety and quality, and the company responds quickly and properly to opportunities and issues. JV Driver has done an excellent job communicating Covestro’s procedures, policies and guidelines to its employees. JV Driver also follows through and makes sure its employees do so as well. The group does a good job of communicating the quality and safety requirements we have here, too. We have a good, close relationship with JV Driver, and the group continues to be very involved on-site. I look forward to having JV Driver on our future projects because the group performs a ‘complete’ lump-sum job.”
Planning for the future
Currently, JV Driver is focused on growing its main service offerings along the Gulf Coast: new construction (large/small cap), maintenance, turnaround project work and fabrication through the use of innovative technologies and precise systematic programs. In a mere 13 years, JV Driver has gone from a $50 million company to a $2 billion company, and that positive trajectory is a testament to the quality of work performed as well as corporate culture.
JV Driver has the unique benefit of a ready supply of expert supervision already secured in the Gulf Coast from recent project work in Canada. The group has a nimble corporate culture that can quickly adapt to the ever-evolving market dynamics of the Gulf Coast and respond with creative contract structures others may not be familiar with. It is these unique benefits, coupled with a near-flawless safety record and a great depth of service offerings, that will enable JV Driver to continue to see growth in the next decade as it has in the past decade.
“The variety of what we can do on a project separates us from our competitors,” Robinson said. “Our companies are interconnected and feed off each other. We have entities and resources from filling key staffing needs to fabrication. In addition to single-source construction, we perform industrial services work, including turnaround project work, maintenance and follow-up services. We will continue to work on acquisitions that give the group more capacity and fit our single-source model.”
JV Driver lives by its core values and brings these core values to every one of its jobsites while exhibiting them through every level of the organization.
- Take care of each other.
- Build great things.
- Be innovative.
- Have fun!
For more information, visit www.jvdriverusa.com or call (866) 391-5816.
