Facilities Maintenance - Protecting Your Pipes from Freezing Temperature

When we experience freezing temperatures in our typically warm, humid climates throughout the South, many residential homes and businesses are left wondering how to prevent frozen pipes. Greenup Industries specializes in In-Plant Property Management including Plumbing and Septic Maintenance, so we’ve asked our experts for a few tips that might help you when temperatures dip closer to freezing.

Safeguard Your Pipes
During freezing temperatures, your pipes are at high risk. If they freeze over, they can sometimes burst causing a lot of financial strain to fix or replace. In order to avoid this, let your sinks drip overnight. This helps prevent pipes from freezing. In addition, open cabinet doors to kitchen and bathroom sinks to allow warm air to protect and circulate around plumbing. Keep doors, windows and garages closed during these times, too, to better insulate and warm plumbing.

Exterior Pipes Need Different Protection
Spigots and outside pipes and plumbing require a bit of a different approach when preparing to prevent freezing. Wrap outside pipes in small towels and let drip if necessary. 

Prevent Frozen Septic Tanks 
Septic tanks freezing over can be an unimaginable mess for your business or home. To avoid dealing with what could be a severely foul occurrence, take the following precautions. Empty your septic tank. Yes, this is regular maintenance, but not always the first task people jump at when temperatures are already uncomfortably low. If a full tank freezes, this could cause a septic tank to burst. Another thing to consider is cracks and open areas. Be sure to inspect for any potential leaking as this could also invite more liquid to seep into the tank and cause bursting. And of course, keep water moving through the system if possible. Water in motion won’t freeze, so if your business is closed due to inclement weather, be sure to check back in daily and induce some motion through the system.

Greenup Industries is a full-service maintenance provider throughout the Gulf Coast Region. Let us help you prepare or fix issues concerning your plumbing. Contact us at info@greenupind.com or call us at 225-283-4843.

At Greenup, Our Relationships Fuel Our Success

It’s not an easy decision to allow a third party to help you with your new or existing project. However, the right partnership can be a win-win for everyone involved!

 At Greenup Industries, we value relationships. In fact, we believe the relationships with our team, our clients, and our subcontractors have fueled our success. For nearly a decade, Greenup Industries has provided a full-range of on-boarding solutions, maintenance and staffing services as well as specialty construction services to our diverse client base. By stressing the importance of integrity, respect, collaboration, trust, and delivery we have built a great team ready to serve you.

Since 2012, we have helped our clients complete thousands of projects. Projects that have created jobs, fostered growth in our communities and increased access to energy, resources, and vital services.

It is the combination of the quality of our people and our relentless drive to deliver the most successful outcomes that help us ensure that we meet your project goals in a timely, efficient, and safe manner.

At Greenup Industries, our variety of clients range from the industrial and commercial manufacturing industries to Federal and local municipalities and utilities. We can help you at any phase of your project, from idea to construction and startup. 

Want to know more about how we can help you achieve your project goals? Call us today at (225) 283-4843. 

Five Tips to Improve Safety at Your Facility

To keep our contractors, vendors, full-time employees, or site visitors safe, Greenup Industries maps every on-site journey from when someone arrives until they sign out from the premises. For nearly a decade, we have learned much about the different safety and security requirements of various industries and organizations. Here are our top 5 safety and security recommendations:

Perform ongoing safety training. 

Providing safety training for employees is essential for creating a culture of workplace safety. A workforce with a strong understanding of safety guidelines and best practices is more likely to recognize potential hazards before they occur. This can lead to fewer injuries and help you avoid costly losses in productivity and employee morale.

Promote a good safety culture

Workplace safety starts with a strong safety culture, the collection of values and beliefs that employers and employees share concerning risks in the workplace. Effective leadership is critical because cultural change is complex and challenging. Leaders need to embrace the safety agenda and lead the efforts across the overall organization.

If you're committed to a safe work environment, find ways to get your employees onboard. Encourage employees to get to know the standards and to report potentially hazardous situations. The OSHA rules and regulations can be a stiff read, making your inductions or training interactive or video-based. 

Keep contractor records up to date.

To keep your site safe and secure, your contractors and vendors must keep their records up to date. Our proprietary software, Greenup Tracker, ensures all of our contractors and vendors have up-to-date records, including relevant qualifications, insurances, and other documents. Contractors and vendors can log in, edit their records, and keep them up to date.

Consider using photo ID scanning for Visitors. 

Providing touchless registration will ensure safer job sites for your workers. Registration, virtual orientations, virtual training, and automated health checklists can all be accessed through their photo ID card. 

This adds an extra layer of security and allows them to verify better people's identity coming on-site, but it also makes sign-in a lot faster.

Make sure your emergency response plan is not "one-size-fits-all." 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) warns that workplace evacuations are more common than people think. There is a broad range of possible emergencies, including explosions, natural disasters, hazardous material releases, biological accidents, civil disturbances, or workplace violence. Your company needs more than a "one-size-fits-all" response plan.

Implement technology to protect lone worker safety

Lone worker safety applications (smartphone apps) can allow users to notify employers and emergency personnel to help locate a worker with a simple action such as pulling a wrist tether from an unlocked phone. Once signaled, the appropriate authorities are immediately dispatched to the worker's location through GPS monitoring. In addition, previously programmed information about the employee will be sent to the dispatch team, requiring the threatened worker to enter zero information while the event is taking place. There are several great apps available to protect your lone workers.

Going beyond compliance

Safety is a crucial enabler of business continuity, operational performance, and productivity. Effectively addressing these five areas will help organizations become safety compliant.

• Prevent workplace injuries

• Improve compliance with laws and regulations

• Reduce costs, including significant reductions in workers' compensation premiums

• Engage workers

• Enhance their social responsibility goals

• Increase productivity and enhance overall business operations

Employers will find that implementing these recommended practices brings other benefits. Studies show that when companies value safety, operational excellence will follow.

About Greenup Industries

Based in Kenner, La., Greenup Industries provides contracting and special construction services to industrial, commercial, and municipal clients. It also has a division focused on maintenance and staffing services to support various industries. The company’s self-designed portal, named Greenup Tracker, connects third-party vendors with industrial facilities in need of painters, plumbers, groundskeepers, carpenters, and other low to moderate security clearance subcontractors. Greenup Industries is certified as a Minority-Owned Business (MBE) by the National Minority Supplier Diversity Council.

In 2019, Greenup Industries was awarded the prestigious Emerging Growth Company of the Year by ACG Louisiana. Rodney Greenup and his team of nearly two dozen employees have worked on a number of high-profile projects, including a major overhaul of New Orleans’ city streets, and several stockpiling projects for the United States Army Corps of Engineers to fortify levees in Louisiana.

If you would like more information on this project, please contact Greenup Industries at 225.283.4843 or info@greenupind.com.

Greenup Tracker - Hiring The Best to Do Their Best Work

At Greenup Industries, we consider all employees, clients, subcontractors and vendors to be part of our family. We value our relationships with our subs and suppliers because we know they are essential to every project that we build.

Our reputation is built on being fair, honest and equitable with our subcontractors and vendors. 

 As a construction contractor, provider of maintenance and third-party procurement services, Greenup Industries provides a full range of on-boarding solutions, maintenance and staffing services to a diverse client base. 

Should you decide to partner with us, you will find that our unique Greenup Tracker system, offers an extensive qualified subcontractor database, and a way to onboard your employees, through three easy steps:

First, we ask that you fill out our onboarding application. 

This will start the pre-qualification process and help us ensure that all of our work continues to be performed by qualified, experienced workers, who are in compliance with top safety measures. 

Second, we will review and evaluate your successful past experience, references, manpower availability, safety, location and bonding to see if you are a good fit for partnership with Greenup.  

 We welcome all inquiries and participation from minority and locally owned companies in all of our projects.

Third, once you qualify as one of our preferred vendors, you will enjoy access to multiple sites that require your services as well as a portal to view the status of your work, invoices and payments. 

If you want to know more about how to become part of our Greenup team and use the Greenup Tracker to access a wealth of opportunity, call us today at (225) 283-4843. 

The Complexities of Instrumentation - What do Instrumentation Technicians Do?

As Greenup Industries introduces instrumentation services to clients across the Gulf South, we are often asked questions about the job responsibilities of our instrumentation technicians. As experts in the industry, our trainees learn the ins and outs of the daily tasks on site.

Instrumentation Technicians are responsible for monitoring changes in the environment and atmosphere surrounding areas and buildings on-site. Using an assortment of instruments, instrumentation technicians record and report the changes they find. Greenup Industries hires Instrument Technicians that exhibit that they possess a complex understanding and responsibility of these tasks, especially in the oil and gas industry.

There is more to instrumentation than just understanding what tools to use and when. The responsibilities of an instrumentation technician include testing, calibration, installation, repair, and inspection. Completing maintenance on equipment, which includes checking meters, measurements and is also required, as well as control. Control requires that the technician manipulate measured variables through automated systems, such as temperature, pressure, and flow.

The responsibilities of an instrumentation technician are absolutely vital to process and production at an oil refinery. Troubleshooting and monitoring such complex processes onsite ensure that everything runs smoothly and everyone around is safe. This job is essential to each refinery's and petrochemical plants’ ongoing success. The day-to-day duties of an instrumentation technician's role are at the forefront of overall production.

If you are looking for a career in operations or maintenance, Greenup Industries will afford you the opportunity to advance your professional development in an industry that experiences groundbreaking projects every day.

To find out more about what Greenup Industries’ instrumentation services offered throughout the Gulf South Region, call us today at (225) 283-4843 or email us at info@greenupind.com.

Streamline processes with Greenup Tracker

For 30 years, Greenup Industries has provided professional and specialized services and procurement support to a diverse clientele, addressing the needs of the oil and gas and telecommunication industries as well as government agencies. Now, with the release of Greenup Tracker, its proprietary software that allows for a more streamlined process, Greenup Industries seeks to further solidify its reputation as a trusted solutions provider.

"We developed Greenup Tracker as a two-pronged solution," explained CEO Rodney Greenup. "For our clients, we wanted to reduce the amount of time spent administering contracts, tracking vendors, and entering data manually from multiple monitoring systems. For our vendors, we wanted to standardize and ease the process for getting them onboard, vetted, and paid. The system is a win-win for everyone involved."

During the past five years, Greenup Industries' strategy has been to identify opportunities to retrofit and change systems, so they work more efficiently.

"We first realized that one of the most impactful ways to cut costs in facilities management is to have our vendors be a part of the Greenup team," Greenup said. "Now we have thousands of vendors and can offer our clients so much more: safe onboarding, quality control, and oversight, and the assumption of liability and indemnity, to name a few."

Quality and accountability

At Greenup Industries, all vendors are managed in the same consistent manner. Each is vetted and must be insured and capable of performing quality work. Before onboarding, vendors must sign an indemnity agreement, submit to drug testing, and have a clean safety record (no safety incidents within the past 12-36 months). To ensure accountability and quality assurance, a Greenup representative escorts the vendor to the worksite, and any on-site trainings.

Ease of process

Greenup Tracker provides vendors with an efficient system and reliable terms for payment.

"Through Greenup Tracker, you can easily add a work order, check on the progress of any job and monitor your payment status with ease," Greenup said. "As a preferred vendor, you can gain access to multiple job sites and immediately see the impact of growing your business."

Greenup Industries is one of the largest third-party-services trading houses in the U.S. and has offices established throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Currently, Greenup is looking to expand to Florida and in the Mississippi Valley toward Missouri.

"As we grow, we stay mindful of our goal to provide the finest-quality services to our clients, to continually improve performance, and to add value to whatever services we provide," Greenup stated.

For more information, visit www.greenupind.com or call (225) 283-4843.

Facilities Maintenance - Commercial Lawn care makes the First Impression

Throughout the South, winter often means we don’t have to focus much energy on lawn care. When considering your commercial business, first impressions are too important, so just because the freezing temperatures we’ve recently had have given us an excuse to focus our efforts on the inside, doesn’t mean we should start planning for the spring. Remember, the first thing clients and customers see when they arrive at your business is the exterior.

Here are 4 Key Benefits of Lawn Care Planning

Appearance 
The way clients and visitors perceive your business can make or break your success. An office/building with properly maintained landscaping ensures positive first impressions to clients and their networks. Those who see a well-maintained exterior will view your business as professional, fostering a sense of trust. Regardless of what services or products your company offers, if people see you take pride in the appearance of your business, they will associate your brand with high quality.

Safety
As always, safety is at the top of our minds at Greenup Industries. When landscaping is unkempt, this poses a potential danger to those going through your doors. Taking care of your lawn and landscaping means taking care of your staff, clients, and potential customers.

Save Money 
When you work with a lawn and landscaping business, like Greenup Specialty Services, you’ll get a professional opinion on what your business needs. Working with professionals to establish a budget and recurring maintenance allows you to save money long term. Work with Greenup Specialty Services to determine which types of plants, trees, and other foliage work best in your climate and terrain to avoid having to replace them later. Greenup Specialty Services can discuss and work with you on how to implement a design that works best for your business.

Establish a Landscape Management Plan 
There are plenty of benefits to establishing a landscape management plan. In addition to the aforementioned, a plan establishes a routine for commercial landscape maintenance care. This will help you and the property owners prepare for the upcoming seasons and anticipate what type of work needs to be done to keep the outside neat and manicured. A wonderful benefit to having a plan is that you can work with the lawn care service providers to adapt and better the landscaping over time, allowing for strategic cultivation that increases property value.

Greenup Industries is a full-service maintenance provider throughout the Gulf South Region. We specialize in taking away the headaches of facilities maintenance. If you would like more information, contact us at info@greenupind.com or give us a call at 225-283-4843.