Q&A: An exclusive look inside Nuframe’s integrated forming division

Nuframe Group’s forming division is ready for its close-up.

We sat down with Director Matt Forward and AJ Construction Principal Albert Wiens — now part of the Nuframe platform — to talk about what it actually takes to do forming well, and what The NuFrame Way looks like in practice (and performance).

SiteNews: Forming is one of those trades that can be easy to take for granted when things are going well, but when something goes wrong, everyone feels it. What does it actually take to do forming well?

Albert Wiens: It starts with good leadership and a good team. If you’re not having good direction and leadership from the top, you’re not going to have the team that follows in behind.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have people work for me for a long time. My longest-serving employee has been with me for 26 years; if you treat your employees well, you will have a good result at the end, as opposed to always bringing in new staff that migrates elsewhere.

Matt Forward: The process side is where I spend most of my time. The importance of a project’s success really comes down to how well you plan at the beginning. Because the formwork is the start of these projects, as well as you plan it — as well as you schedule, coordinate, and sequence — that’s as good as the project is going to go.

People don’t notice forming if it goes well. And that’s actually the goal: make sure it’s planned well enough that people either notice how well it went, or, at worst, don’t notice at all, and the project just progresses accordingly.

Wiens: It’s almost a compliment when people don’t notice that the project went seamlessly, because that means there weren’t any hiccups along the way. There’s a saying in our industry: you do 20 good jobs and nobody hears about it. You do one crap job and everybody hears about it.

SN: SiteNews covered the AJ Construction acquisition back in February. Now that it’s been a couple of months, what has the integration actually looked like on the ground?

Forward: What we have seen in the interactions between the teams is a real mutual respect. There’s excitement on both sides about what everyone brings to the table. The Nuframe side has been genuinely eager to learn from the experience the AJ guys bring, and to see how that feeds into the systems we already have in place.

Wiens: The procedures, policies, and infrastructure that Nuframe adds to the table give us way more ceiling in terms of what we’re capable of. AJ brought our capacity as far as we could take it on our own. Now, with the structure Nuframe provides, the sky’s the limit.

SN: When forming and framing are both under the Nuframe umbrella, how does that change the planning process — and what does the handoff between phases actually look like?

Forward: The framing team is used to being told: we’re doing the concrete now, so do your pre-planning, and when the concrete’s done, you can start. When we have control of concrete within the group, that changes completely. We build schedules as part of our quoting process — so as soon as contracts are signed, those schedules can be finalized. From that point, the framing team can start planning based on trust, because we’re all in the same company. They know they can rely on forming to do what it says, which helps them plan better for production cycles, labour planning, and resource planning.

There’s also the accountability piece. We’re inherently accountable to our clients regardless. But when forming and framing are both Nuframe, we’re accountable internally as well. A lot of other trades say: this is our scope, this is what we’re getting paid for, the rest is on the GC. But because we at Nuframe are integrated across multiple scopes of work, we put meaningful thought and planning into the whole project.

Wiens: If we were an independent forming company, we’d be accountable to the GC. Now, because we’re working alongside the framing side, we’re accountable to both them and ourselves. That’s a meaningful shift.

SN: What does “The Nuframe Way” actually look like in practice when a forming crew is on site?

Forward: The schedule we anchor ourselves in isn’t just a timeline — it creates the execution pathway for all the pre-planning. That level of thought is where we have a real advantage, but the people piece is inseparable from it. Having those processes in place is what allows the people who work for us to know what to expect every day. They can come to work knowing it’s not going to burn them out — that their time is respected, and that their input is valued. When people feel respected and valued, they become a contributing part of that process. It’s cyclical.

Wiens: In construction, forming and framing are the two drivers when it comes to site speed. Those two are driving the pace of the project, and having them aligned under one roof is meaningful for turnaround times and cost effectiveness. 

SN: Is there anything you’d want the industry to know about Nuframe’s forming division that they may not realize?

Forward: The value we bring doesn’t just come from experience in the trades — it comes from understanding projects from the client’s perspective. Our backgrounds span from site superintendent all the way to working directly with developers. We understand how projects are run in their entirety. That’s the foundation everything else is built on.