Applied Materials - Newburyport, MA

Best Flooring Solution

This 2400 SF project took place in a secure bunker at a manufacturing facility that researches, engineers, and manufactures the systems used to fabricate semiconductor chips, LCD & OLED displays, solar panels and more. The customer removed their old VCT floor covering, expecting to expose a beautiful concrete slab in perfect condition to land their new equipment on. As you can see from the photos this was not the case and they were left looking at a thick, ugly, black adhesive covering the floor. That is when Simeone Floors was called to deliver a polished concrete floor in time to accept the new equipment that had already been ordered and scheduled for delivery. Our team transformed the aesthetics in this space using a SASE Wulf Claw to remove the adhesive and get the first cut before polishing up to 400 grit resins with a final burnish and autoscrub.

Most Aggressive Timeline / Schedule

This 2400 SF project took place in a secure bunker at a manufacturing facility that researches, engineers, and manufactures the systems used to fabricate semiconductor chips, LCD & OLED displays, solar panels and more. The customer removed their old VCT floor covering, expecting to expose a beautiful concrete slab in perfect condition to land their new equipment on. As you can see from the photos this was not the case and they were left looking at a thick, ugly, black adhesive covering the floor. That is when Simeone Floors was called to deliver a polished concrete floor in time to accept the new equipment that had already been ordered and scheduled for delivery. Simeone Floors received the request on Friday 5/5, walked the site on Monday 5/8, submitting pricing by Tuesday 5/9. Once pricing was accepted the team mobilized to site on Friday 5/19 to deliver our equipment and begin hanging a temporary poly containment to cover a 4' gab between the 18' high CMU bunker walls and underside of the slab above. The polishing process began on Monday 5/22 and was complete by Saturday 5/27, including removal of the poly containment in order to receive the customers new equipment that landed Monday 5/29. This schedule was maintained despite the fact that we were not permitted to store our equipment and material in any space except the one we were working. Because of this the team processed half the slab, moved equipment, and processed the remainder of the slab before starting the process over again as we continued to the next polishing step. The team also lost productivity from constantly reworking the poly containment that was subject to positive pressure from the space's HVAC. The customer was pleased with Simeone's ability to quickly price and proceed in delivering an exceptional polished concrete floor in time to receive their new equipment.

Toughest Site Conditions

This 2400 SF project took place in a secure bunker at a manufacturing facility that researches, engineers, and manufactures the systems used to fabricate semiconductor chips, LCD & OLED displays, solar panels and more. The customer removed their old VCT floor covering, expecting to expose a beautiful concrete slab in perfect condition to land their new equipment on. As you can see from the photos this was not the case and they were left looking at a thick, ugly, black adhesive covering the floor. That is when Simeone Floors was called to deliver a polished concrete floor in time to accept the new equipment that had already been ordered. Because of the dust sensitive equipment in the facility, controlling dust migration while polishing the concrete slab was critical to delivering a successful project. Simeone Floors brought in air scrubbers and a lift to setup poly containment around half of the space where there was a 4’ gap between the 18' high bunker walls and underside of the slab above. This gap was full of MEP penetrations and to add another challenge the customer was unable to shut off the air serving this positively pressurized space. Because of the positive pressure the crews frequently stopped grinding in order to rework the poly containment when voids opened up. Additionally, we were not permitted to store our dusty equipment and material in any space except the one we were working. This required us to process half the slab, move our equipment, process the remainder and then start over again as we move throughout the polishing process. Despite these challenges we were able to remove the adhesive and deliver a polished concrete floor while maintaining a secure poly containment to avoid dust traveling to adjacent manufacturing spaces.