The Austin Company studied the feasibility of three alternative solutions to expand the capacity of the existing factory.

Expanding on three sides of the existing factory and extending the plant and service rooms over the existing plant and production areas. Complicated construction programming allowed Bakels to retain plant and production areas in operation until sufficient parts of new areas could be released or plant re-positioned in prepared, but partly completed, areas. Managed constructive co-operation between client, Austin and subcontractors, created a positive attitude on the site, resulting in early identification of possible problems and solutions.

The challenge here was to treble the production space of the factory to enable Bakels to capitalise on their growing business for the foreseen market opportunities.

In addition we had to maximise the land usage of the site and use development capital efficiently, apply the Austin integrated design, management and construction method to maximise benefits whilst containing cost within a target figure.

We constructed a new larger factory for the migration of existing production equipment, thus enabling the existing wet production area to be upgraded in future for other production. By replacing the existing QC laboratory with expanded capacity and improved the facility.

The size of the covered loading bay was doubled including a tank bund, tanker loading bay and an IBC washing facility to improve lorry access and circulation on the site.

The staff canteen and changing rooms were trebled in capacity and incorporated additional hygiene facilities to meet customer upgrade expectation.

This project succeeded in meeting the client’s imperatives for capacity, continuity, quality and cost.