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Teams tend to book lodging once, at the start of the project, and then discover that phase two needed something different. Here are the three phases and what actually changes between them.
A plant startup is planned as one continuous project, but from a lodging point of view it is three chained projects with different people in them. Booking once, on the terms of the first month, is what produces most mid-project adjustments.
The three phases have different headcounts, different working hours and different durations. Recognising that early lets you decide what one property can cover and what needs a second arrangement.
This is the phase closest to a construction site. Crews arrive with tools, in several vehicles, on schedules that start early and sometimes run long. Headcount is high and turnover is high too: people come and go as the work advances.
A whole house works well here for practical reasons rather than comfort ones: its own parking, self check-in with no reception hours, a kitchen for breakfast before the early departure, and a washer for work clothes. What has to be agreed in writing from day one is rotation, because in this phase the names on the list change more than once.
The profile changes completely. The team shrinks, becomes more technical and often includes specialists travelling in from outside the country. Days stretch unpredictably and, on many projects, night shifts appear so lines can be tested without stopping anything.
This is where lodging planning most often goes wrong. The booking was made for a crew of six and now it is three people who need to rest on different schedules. If split shifts are coming, it is worth revisiting the arrangement before the phase starts rather than halfway through it.
The third phase is the longest and the least intense. What remains is support staff, training and knowledge transfer, on stable hours and with stays measured in months.
At that point the question is no longer project lodging but what to do while permanent staff sort out housing. It is the same in-between stretch any relocation goes through: somebody has to live somewhere while a rental process that has nothing to do with the project runs its course.
We are a three-bedroom house with five beds, one full bathroom and capacity for up to seven guests, in Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon. That works well as a base for work in the eastern industrial corridor of the metro area: Apodaca, Pesqueria and Juarez, Nuevo Leon.
We are not the right base for projects at the far western end of the metro area, and we say so before you ask. We are also not a solution for housing thirty people: if your phase one is that size, this house covers part of the team, not the whole project. Send us the date range per phase and the headcount for each, and we will tell you plainly which stretch we can cover.
It is worth checking availability for the whole project at once, but planning the terms phase by phase. Headcount and working hours change considerably between installation, commissioning and production ramp-up.
Check availability for your dates or request information to house your team. We typically reply the same day.
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