HBPW’s reputation for value engineering has been instrumental in winning it a major piece of business that will see the opening of a new biscuit manufacturing facility in Nottinghamshire later this year.
Cerealto, which has operations in Portugal, Italy, Spain, Mexico and the United States, has a 20-year heritage of producing innovative, top quality cereal-based products from biscuits and cakes to baby food and pasta.
So when the Spanish company said it wanted to open a new factory on part of the Gateford Industrial Estate at Claylands Avenue in Worksop, with the initial creation of 50 jobs, there was considerable political excitement locally.
Managing Partner, Paul Withers, said: “Our Bradford based sister company, HBCL, was originally invited to the table by Spanish based, Ditesca, which has been delivering complex industrial projects since 1993.
“Via HBCL, HBPW was asked to design the structural steelwork and foundations for the industrial building and various silos that will hold things like flour, sugar, liquid chocolate and palm oil.”
Then Paul spotted an opportunity.
“I realised that some of the original engineering drawings had been over-designed and knew that considerable cost could be taken out of the overall project in terms of programme time and materials.
“A case in point were the foundations for one particular tank. They were drawn to a depth of three metres but I knew that 700mm would be perfectly adequate. Scale up this type of challenge and you have a massive difference in budget.”
Working with Ditesca, who are ‘compartmentalising’ the building internally into its various manufacturing components whilst, at the same time, installing key manufacturing equipment, Paul was able to dramatically reduce the overall scheme cost.
“We finished up designing structural steel work for plant access platforms, as well as various other things, and are now largely leading the building engineering on site,” added Paul. “This is an exciting project and a classic example of a new client win driven by our value engineering ethos.”
The new factory, which will begin operations later this year, is Cerealto’s first UK facility.