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The Customer Challenge

The sprawling and historic PepsiCo Quaker Oats plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa - billed as the world's largest cereal milling plant - has long pumped out Quaker's flagship oatmeal and packaged cereals.

Quaker Plant flooded

Situated right next to the Cedar River, the plant was forced to shut down when the river burst over its banks in June of 2008, flooding 400 city blocks and forcing 25,000 people from their homes.

Quaker engineers and safety personnel were able to tour the facility when flood waters receded a few days later.


"The electrical systems were all covered with mud and water," said Mark Gonsoski, Project Engineer with Quaker Food & Beverage. "That quickly leads to rusting issues as well as bad electrical connections."

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The Tri-City Electric Co. Solution

As an electrical contractor experienced with disaster recovery, and with proficiency in power testing, design, engineering and integration, Tri-City Electric Co. was able to step in immediately and help Quaker restore and replace damaged electrical equipment.


"The number of people in the plant was unbelievable," said Todd Daily, General Manager of the Tri-City Electric Co. Engineering Division. "There was an extraordinary amount of people at the plant and Quaker wanted to limit this number of people as much as possible."


The health hazards associated with the flood water played a large role in this. Anyone setting foot into the plant had to provide verification of an up-to-date tetanus shot and be approved for respirator use.Quad Plant in Cedar Rapids

At Quaker's request, Tri-City Electric Co. remotely rebuilt the electrical systems related to the plant's water system - all of which were located in the basement - from the As-Built drawings of the systems.


"The Quaker team acted as our eyes, relaying information about the equipment and what needed to be replaced," said Daily.


The Results

Tri-City Electric Co. rebuilt the potable and service water control system, the chlorine water PLC panel, and the cooling tower PLC panel. A five member team from the Tri-City Electric Co. Engineering & Integration division supplied replacement panels, programming and startup support of these systems - configuring networks, programming drives and automation controllers.


After one month, the Quaker plant was back in operation - a tremendous feat considering the amount of water it took on.


"Tri-City Electric Co. has programming expertise, and we used that expertise in having them rebuild the panels," said Gonsoski. "They always asked the right questions and that helped in completing this project in a timely manner."


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