LEADING EDGE

Most Influential
Wayne Brothers’ Keith Wayne was featured in the January
issue of Concrete Construction Magazine for being Most Influential
in the Concrete Industry. The following is an exert
from William D. Palmer Jr.’s article.
Taking risks is what contractors do—it’s how they make a living.
Taking extra risk by adopting new technology and ideas,
though, is something many contractors shy away from. Keith
Wayne, president of Wayne Brothers in Kannapolis, N.C.
doesn’t adopt new technology blindly, but he has been willing
to move forward a little earlier than most contractors
and that has been one secret to his company’s success. “I’m
a pretty harsh critic and skeptic about new technology,” he
says, “it must work well and consistently and be practical to
use in a broad range of applications.”
Today, Wayne Brothers is heavily into technology and new approaches, including building information
modeling (BIM), self-consolidating concrete, laser-guided equipment, modular European formwork,
and Ductilcrete floor slabs. “Ductilcrete is becoming more and more useful and accepted as the slabon-grade
of choice because of its ability to maintain its flatness over time, which a conventional slab
doesn’t, and to eliminate 70 to 75% of the joints, which minimizes the maintenance program since it’s
the joints that create the problems. I’m pretty pumped up about Ductilcrete.”
On the strength of that new business and a diversified approach, including site work and vertical forming,
Wayne Brothers broke into Engineering NewsRecord’s top 20 concrete firms in 2014. “We’re proud
of that but humble,” says Wayne. “We’ve had great blessings; good clients who continue to call to ask us
to work for them. The old adage works for us: the best way to sell your next job is your last job.” Wayne
Brothers works throughout the Southeast U.S. from offices in North Carolina and South Carolina.
One money-maker has been BIM. “We are using BIM extensively — on every job with only a few exceptions
for very small projects” says Wayne. “We start with the modeling on some projects during the
preconstruction phase and use it for estimating. The modeling is useful during negotiations, too, well
before we get to the field. In the construction phase, BIM helps us to manage conflicts and to modularize
construction activity which allows us to do some work in the shop so that less space is needed on the
jobsite.”
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Wayne Brothers is now moving into the next generation. “My two sons both work in the business,”
Wayne says. “Isaiah manages our strategic workforce issues including training. Daniel is the Director
of Technology. He was the project manager for our new operations center which we built ourselves.”
Wayne isn’t relying solely on family, though, there are three other partners who are all shareholders
and company leaders, which he believes will smooth out the company’s succession when he decides to
retire.
You can the entire article here: http://www.concreteconstruction.net/commercial-projects/successby-embracing-change-keith-wayne_o.aspx?dfpzone=general
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