Expanding a water bottling plant without disrupting production

Optimising construction

For a leading water bottling company, speed-to-market is essential. To avoid disrupting production, Arup’s structures team divided the construction of the new 4000m² building into stages.

Arup’s structural experts suggested the use of prefabricated structure components such as reinforced concrete columns and beams, which reduced construction time of the main structure by 75%, down from eight to two weeks. Working in BIM helped optimise the process, enhancing collaboration between architects, engineers, and designers, while reducing delays.

Arup’s engineers designed the new mechanical, electrical and plumbing installations to connect seamlessly with the existing circuit, and examined the sewage and drainage systems to ensure new installations don’t interfere with the existing ones.

To ensure the new structure won’t negatively impact any living species on site, or the environment, we conducted an environmental impact assessment.

Developing a 3D model

Expanding an existing production plant comes with its own set of challenges. New structures need to be well integrated with existing plant infrastructure for easy production and transportation. Arup’s experts had to enable the smooth co-functioning of the new building and production lines with the existing structures, systems and installations.

Building information modelling (BIM) helped provide a holistic approach to the expansion process. We developed a 3D model of the expansion part to be included in the existing digital model of the entire plant. The model helped all experts involved to efficiently arrange the new space and connect it to the existing buildings by providing information about the various components within the production plant such as production lines and building installations.

As our 3D model facilitates collaboration, all parties conducted virtual design reviews in tandem and prevented clashes between components in the same physical location.