A mechanical engineering firm was contracted to install new cooling equipment in a municipal ice rink’s mechanical room. The challenge was to design the equipment installation without tearing out the old equipment first, and to install some elements and piping that housed the refrigerant around the current equipment configuration to limit downtime of the facility when the cooling unit was actually disconnected.

The challenge

As an incentive, the municipality offered the engineering firm a bonus for every day they finished ahead of  schedule, or a penalty for every day the rink was out of commission past the projected timeline.

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