Before designing a new factory

Organization-wide involvement

If businesses need new production facilities they tend to assume that this is a job for technical specialists such as feed mill construction businesses or engineering companies. Most of these companies do indeed present themselves as experienced mill designers, but having specific experience in designing a production plant for a pet food company is very important. 

The very first phase of such a project is to do research and provide all kinds of detailed information necessary for a proper designing job. Engineers will do the actual designing for which they need design data, which is different from project to project. They depend very much on the company’s business philosophy and strategy. The whole organisation – from company management to workers on the production floor – should be involved in supplying this data, because they have the most knowledge about need-to-haves, nice-to-haves, and what can be arranged at later stages.

The process

Whether it is for a small factory or a large one, this process of gathering information is always the same. It is a complex process of analysing and investigating, proposing and budgeting, business development and decision making, planning and control, team work and project management. Let’s have a look at each of the steps. 

1.    Business development planning

• Make a business development planning about standard products to be made.
• Indicate monthly turn-over for the present period and the next five years;
• Indicate possible new products to be developed and introduced to the market; 
• Indicate the estimated production plant turn-over at start and within five years; 
• Benchmark present competitors and possible future competitors, if introduction of new products will also result in new competitors.

2.    Storage policy for raw materials and finished products

• Calculate the optimum daily minimum stock level for each raw material and be aware that raw materials can often not be delivered in the weekend;
• Investigate the best delivery options in terms of supply in bags, IBCs or bulk. Lorry size per delivery is also important to know; 
• Investigate the product properties of each raw material – their maximum allowed storage life and the storage properties of each raw material, the flowing properties, flow ability and flood ability, the flowing density (E0), settling density (E50) and the ATEX class (explosion danger).

3    Production process requirements analyses

• Decide whether to use standard technology already available at the company or new technology and related equipment;
• Decide on batch size and production run sizes, hygienic circumstances and cleaning in place options; 
• Formulate ideas about the degree of automation for HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) of production area’s.

The selection of the basic machinery is a project in itself.

• Which mixers, grinders, extruders, dryers, coating equipment to use? This can be a rather long process that will entail several discussions with suppliers, running tests and visits to reference facilities; 
• Selection of packaging equipment: packing lines can be highly automated and a complete line with high-speed bagging equipment, bag-in-box machinery or bag-in-tray machinery with shrink wrapping, automatic palletizing and wrapping machines can be even more expensive than an extrusion line.

4.    Packaging technology and storage need

• Indicate what is possible and necessary in the field of packaging technology;
• Decide on the stock control policy of semi-finished and finished products and the amount of stock keeping units (SKUs);
• Study the distribution system of finished products. Will you do the order picking yourself or is it best to hire distributers for the order picking?

5.    Buildings and offices need

• Establish the need for offices, dressing rooms, kitchens and eating facilities, waiting areas for drivers, workshops and spare part storage, a place to repair broken pallets and the storage of packaging material which should be stored under controlled air conditions;
• Determine the need for a laboratory and storage of chemicals, what will be the HVAC of the offices and the need for communication means;
• An often overlooked question: the earthquake-resistance of buildings and the best way to protect premises from rodent and birds;
• Decide whether you now have enough information for the engineers to start the designing process. This all starts with process design, which means block diagrams from the unit operations, flow diagrams showing the main equipment type and the first lay-out and basic calculations showing line capacities, batch sizes, silo quantity and sizes. The engineers will also ask for the tracking and tracing policy that will be followed by the company, a policy which has a great influence on the facility set-up. So, again, company management need to take decisions.

6.    Roads, fences, parking policy

• Study the routing of traffic across the area, which means positioning the weigh bridge(s) and having a look at circulation of lorries on own land;
• Decide on the type of fencing to be used and where the entrances and parking lots for lorries and private cars will be situated. Choose the location for the gate-keeper, decide which roads will be hardened, and where loading and unloading will take place;
• Study and decide on sewage systems and water storage for fire-fighting.

7.    Automation, MES, order entry

• While the design work has been started, we also look at automation, MES and order-entry.
• Select the factory’s automation system and the company that will provide after sales services;
• Decide on the communication method between office systems and factory automation.

8.    Organisation development

• Very often we need to develop a new production organisation.
• This process includes employee selection and place in the organisation and the development of a reporting system; 
• Decide on maintenance policy and organisation. Do we go for preventive maintenance systems or do we follow ‘fire brigade’ policy, which means ‘repair if broken’;
• What quality system development must be initiated and for which departments in the organisation do we need to provide specific training.

As is evident from the steps described above, before engineers can start designing a new factory the client’s organisation needs to supply the necessary information, which is an arduous task. It would be extremely helpful for engineers if the organisation realised that this needs to be done first, as it often is done too late or is not completed in time. Let’s learn and improve!