Structures and equipment don’t last forever. At some point, they begin to exhibit signs of wear and tear. Eventually, you need to take action.

The enemy is procrastination. Last minute repairs are costly – particularly when equipment has already failed and production has come to a halt.

Neither do you necessarily want to rip and replace. New equipment is nice – but a simple cost-benefit analysis often shows that keeping existing equipment up and running (perhaps with modifications) makes the best financial and business sense.      

Which is what ‘brownfield” plant modernization is all about. There’s a lot of value in the equipment you already have – and with plant modernization, you can keep on generating value for years to come.

Let’s take a look at four reasons for moving forward:

Safety

When a worker becomes sick or injured, the business feels the effect. But potential safety risks can be anywhere – in degraded equipment or outdated building structures; in ventilation, electrical, and waste management systems; or even in manufacturing production processes.

A plant modernization initiative can focus on the present and future conditions of equipment, buildings, and manufacturing processes to help minimize safety risks. You can also assess when to replace, upgrade, and expand operations before it is too late. Modernization can be a big step forward when it comes to ensuring workers are operating in safer conditions.

Cost Savings

One big advantage of plant modernization is the financial savings – and these can be realized surprisingly fast. When scheduling and executing retrofits, upgrades, and expansions, it is important to consider downtime, mill flow, operating budget, and other factors. The goal is to maintain what’s working correctly, extend the life of existing equipment, and modify only what will provide ROI with minimum risk.

Direct replacement is an option – but when modernizing a process or a facility, a holistic, creative, and innovative approach that integrates old and new in an existing environment can pay far higher dividends. All different options should be examined and considered before starting demolition and pouring concrete.

Reliability

To serve customers consistently and maintain manufacturing productivity, having reliable systems in place is a must. Equipment lifespans of 30 years or more are common, and many facilities maintain operations for 40 to 60 years. Up-to-date equipment improves overall reliability by eliminating the faults that may occur as equipment ages. Unplanned power outages, costing thousands or millions of dollars, can be avoided with a well-designed upgrade plan that minimizes downtime to just a few hours or less.

Digital Capabilities

As technology continues to develop and improve, plants can benefit from integrating modernized equipment that facilitates cloud and Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity. Many digital components of electrical equipment tie directly into enhancing facility management – enabling plant managers to make smarter decisions. The result is actionable insights for managing and maintaining critical systems and avoiding unplanned downtime.

Getting Started

Plant modernization starts with a functional assessment to address issues in a quantitative way that considers business investment and ROI. Sometimes, such an assessment simply reaffirms your intuition about what is best for the facility from both physical and financial perspectives. Other times, it can uncover hidden issues you may not have seriously considered beforehand.

During this assessment, it is important to review existing building plans for the facility. If contemplating an addition, you may require a site survey. It is also important to gather and generate documents related to the age of the building. This documentation can be useful when it comes to resolving any environmental or code issues and evaluating existing mechanical systems.

For more than 50 years, Crow has provided plant modernization design services to help our customers avoid the costs associated with last minute upgrades and unplanned downtime. During a plant modernization project, we assist clients through the estimation, design, and construction phases. Design input is taken from plant, project, and maintenance managers, and floor personnel. Together we hold team meetings with all stakeholders across the organization and act as the primary point of contact for manufacturers, designers, engineers, and vendors. We are very flexible and can manage any and every individual task throughout the project.

Take, for instance, a recent sawmill modernization project that Crow helped to manage. By going brownfield – repurposing the current facility at the mill – the customer saved half a million dollars in capital expenses. This savings allowed us to significantly increase the roof capacity, add a bridge crane system that was more than 2.5x the capacity of the current system, and increase the span and reach of the crane system. In parallel, we engineered the support systems needed to fit all new saw equipment into the new space. Crow achieved 5% accuracy in project estimation costs. More importantly, the customer was able to get more value from its modernization effort – thanks to a brownfield approach that helps deliver better ROI.

Call 503-213-2013 or email us at inforequest@crowengineering.com to assess your modernization goals

by Brett W. King, PE, SE;
Structural Engineering Department Manager

In the first part of this article, we looked at the basics and dimensions of metal buildings for industrial settings. In this second part of the article, we explain the design criteria and specifications of pre-engineered metal buildings.

Design Criteria and Specifications

Design criteria are commonly specified by the building buyer to meet their specific needs. Specifications for buildings are usually a combination of drawings and written documents that provide the information needed by the metal building manufacturer. These documents can be used to get multiple bids for a building or to contract with a preferred vendor.

In some cases, a building buyer may frequently purchase metal buildings – with purchasing decisions often based on a very limited set of specifications. This may happen after a vendor has provided a number of buildings to a particular buyer and an understanding has been developed for just what the customer wants and what the vendor should deliver.

In other cases, organizations such as the Metal Building Manufacturers Association (MBMA) provide model specifications that can be used to order buildings with ordinary common specifications created by the MBNA. These specifications cover the most common criteria for siding and roofing material, design codes and structural loading, coatings, and more.

Building Layout and Finishes

It may be possible to specify simple buildings in text format via written specifications. However, it is usually more effective to prepare drawings that show the layout and dimensions of the building needed. This requires that the buyer to prepare drawings themselves or hire the services of an engineer or architect.

The advantage to this approach is that the building layout can be thought through carefully. Building dimensions, door and window sizes and locations, structural loading requirements, material types and colors, and much more can all be specified in advance. Issues such as inside clearances, eave height, and building width can all be worked out in detail prior to engaging bidders who may be interested in winning the project.

This effort is most critical when there are tight limit or requirements for inside clear height – for instance, to enclose equipment or to provide for the support of cranes.

Standard metal buildings will be delivered typically with a shop-applied coat of primer only. During development of the specifications, prior to bidding, is the time to determine if more appropriate and capable coatings are required. For buildings that may be subject to high humidity or corrosive materials, as may be the case for many industrial environments, special coatings should be considered. Frequently, these will not be provided by the manufacturer of the building but will be applied to the building after erection. It is important, though, to specify the proper primer for the coating intended for use after erection. The building manufacturer must be required to use any specified primers and include the product in their bid. 

Building Loading

Pre-engineered metal buildings must meet the requirements of the building code of the jurisdiction where the building will be built. Most of the loading criteria will be the minimum loads specified by ASCE 7 Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures. This building code specifies all of the required environmental loading for wind, earthquake, and snow that will occur at the site.

The gravity loads, or dead load weight of a building, are calculated directly from the dimensions of all components including rafters, purlins, insulation, and metal roofing. It is common to add an artificial superimposed dead load of 5 pounds per square foot (psf) to the design of roof purlins and rafters. This load is intended to accommodate additional weight of items such as lighting, sprinkler systems, and HVAC duct work of an ordinary nature. It should be noted that some manufacturers may use only 3 psf for this purpose. This will reduce costs but limits allowable loading by the building owner and is not usually recommended by specifying engineers.

Where a building buyer has special needs, additional loads must be clearly specified for the building manufacturer to consider while bidding and for design. Some examples of special loads that must be specified include cranes, hanging mechanical equipment, roof top supported equipment, and just about anything else that may exceed a 3 to 5 psf superimposed load. In some cases, it is helpful to simply specify a superimposed load that’s higher than 5 psf in order to provide a more robust oof structure.

Summary

In summary, this article provides a limited view into the design and specification of pre-engineered metal buildings. Please contact us to achieve the best results and receive a building that closely meets your needs. Crow can help you to develop drawings and written specifications that you can use to submit bids that meet your space, clearance, and load requirements.