United Architectural Metals realizes the importance of the building facade in overall building performance. The facade is the most critical system of any given project and has the opportunity to affect other building systems directly based on its performance. A correctly, responsibly, designed, built and installed facade is capable of lowering the demands placed on building electrical systems, HVAC loads, and occupant comfort – which ultimately causes increased productivity. The facade has been placed at a wide range of impact on overall building loads, but some figures state the building envelope as being responsible for up to 60-70% of the buildings total energy consumption. Once lighting, heating and cooling, ventilation, and maintenance are factored into the equation it becomes easy to see how these numbers are possible. As such, we encourage all projects to be as sustainable as possible, and strive to meet any sustainability requirements outlined in the project specifications, whether it is LEED certification or not.

LEAN Manufacturing

UAM recognizes that sustainability starts in the manufacture and production of goods. As such, high importance is placed on lean manufacturing techniques such as eliminating waste through optimization, reduced inventory, just in-time production, continuous improvement and built-in quality. These techniques help to maintain a steady work flow that fully utilizes available resources in order to meet project deadlines in an on-time manner with the highest possible quality of products. UAM even uses custom reusable metal bunks as opposed to traditional wood ones to ship the units from shop to job site to help reduce wasted packaging.