Specialty Steel Fabricator

The Challenge

A specialty steel fabrication manufacturer – and longtime Stein Service & Supply customer – had recently expanded into a new Charlotte facility and approached our team to outfit the space. The expansion required a cleanroom environment for specialized fabrication work, but the available footprint was tight. The customer also needed a large door opening into the cleanroom to allow quick access for moving materials and finished work in and out throughout the day.

The Solution

Stein partnered with Panel Built to design an ISO 8 cleanroom equipped with the required HEPA filtration systems, sized precisely to fit the constrained footprint. A 12-foot by 10-foot framed roll-up door was specified to give the customer rapid access for material flow without compromising the controlled environment when the door was closed.

To recover the floor space the cleanroom occupied, our team designed an industrial mezzanine to sit directly above it. The mezzanine added a dedicated upper level for parts storage and material handling, effectively doubling the usable area in that part of the facility. An integrated vertical lift system was added to move materials efficiently between the two levels, eliminating the lost time and physical strain of carrying parts up and down stairs.

The installation phase brought its own challenges. Because the design integrated several systems – cleanroom, mezzanine, vertical lift, and pallet rack – onsite modifications were required to the cleanroom ventilation and the mezzanine stairs to avoid conflicts between components. Stein’s team made those changes in real time without holding up the schedule. Several other trades were also working in the same space during installation, which required tight project management and careful coordination of inspections.

The result is a multi-functional production area that gives the customer a clean, code-compliant fabrication environment, double the usable storage above it, and efficient material flow between the two – all in a footprint that originally posed a hard space constraint.
This project highlights Stein’s expertise in integrating multiple systems into a tight footprint, coordinating complex installations alongside other trades, and adapting design details on the fly to keep a multi-trade project on schedule. The work was recognized by Panel Built as their Project of the Month for April 2026.