Tag

Pre-Construction

Views: 2080

5 Details to Give Your Design-Builder for a More Accurate Food Project Budget

At this time of year, many food processors are planning next year’s capital expenditures, which often means piecing together budgets for upcoming food plant construction projects. It is important to create the most accurate budget possible: a tricky task. Frequently, food processors prepare budgets without the assistance of an experienced design-builder. By doing so, they make assumptions that can skew their entire budget.

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Views: 1818

How CALGreen is Impacting Design and Construction Practices

To incorporate sustainability into building construction and design, California established the California Green Building Standards Code—known as CALGreen for short. As the first statewide green building code in the United States, this code’s voluntary and mandatory measures aim to reduce environmental impact during and after construction while increasing buildings’ efficiency in materials and energy usage. As a food manufacturing and/or storage facility owner, you should understand that CALGreen is changing the way the building industry does business.

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Views: 1157

Food Processing Plant Site Due Diligence: Soft Costs to Expect

Before selecting a site for your food processing plant, are you sure you’re accounting for all of the costs involved? In our last post, we outlined some key considerations for building a better greenfield budget. Here, I dive in deeper with the often forgotten soft costs, or fees that fall outside the realm of direct construction costs. These include pre-construction permits, impact fees and utility connection fees. To help you with your site due diligence, be sure to account for these soft costs commonly associated with new facility sites.

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Views: 2204

How to Build a Better Capital Budget for Your Food Processing Plant

‘Tis the season to … piece together your capital budget for the new year. When estimating your numbers for food processing projects on the horizon, don’t just base your predictions on what you did the last time around. You shouldn’t be estimating costs based solely on square footage, either. However, there are ways to build a higher confidence level behind your budget and ensure its accuracy—it all lies within the data. Continue Reading “How to Build a Better Capital Budget for Your Food Processing Plant”

Views: 4382

5 Ways to Reduce Preventive Maintenance Costs for Your Food Processing Plant

Preventive maintenance should be one of your key strategies to keeping your plant’s assets healthy. While equipment upkeep and parts replacements are necessary, there are ways you can reduce your preventive maintenance costs without decreasing your food processing facility’s operational efficiencies.

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Views: 982

Why Your Expansion Plan Needs Supply Chain Modeling

As the food processing industry continues to flourish, many manufacturers are faced with the need to increase capacity. Whether it’s adding a new process line, building an additional plant or expanding an existing facility, conducting a supply chain analysis in partnership with your design team can lead to better decision-making and more efficient capital expenditures.

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Views: 6749

The International Building Code’s Modification to Exit Access Travel Distance

The 2015 International Building Code includes a key modification, increasing the length of exit access travel distance from 250 feet to 400 feet (if it meets specific criteria) for buildings containing Group F-1 and/or S-1 occupancy. This change is significant to the design industry, building owners and occupants of large distribution and manufacturing facilities. Understanding the code’s implications for your existing and future facilities will ensure you’re properly prepared. Continue Reading “The International Building Code’s Modification to Exit Access Travel Distance”

Views: 2281

Five Steps in Energy Modeling to Make Your Building More Efficient

This week, we welcome guest bloggers Thulasi Narayan and Andrew Lee from Paladino and Company. Paladino is an industry leading green building and sustainability consulting firm with a team of architects, engineers, building scientists, commissioning agents and business analysts who advise companies on energy efficiency. Stellar often partners with Paladino to estimate energy performance, help develop energy reduction strategies and track estimated performance against the project’s energy goal during the design process.

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Views: 18144

Five Things To Consider When Selecting A Site For Your New Plant

Earlier this year, Food Processing magazine’s Kevin T. Higgins claimed that being a food manufacturer was the next best thing to being a king. Why? Because most new plant projects and renovations are now supported by generous, multimillion public subsidies. But while communities dangle expensive bait in hopes of catching job creation, it’s skewing the site-selection process, resulting in plants built in unfit locations. Continue Reading “Five Things To Consider When Selecting A Site For Your New Plant”

Views: 627

Top Five Implications of California’s New Energy Standards

Energy consumption is a global issue and California is leading the charge in enacting legislation to reduce our carbon footprint. The state recently revised the energy standards known as Title 24, part 6 of the California Code of Regulations, which will more than likely affect other states in the future. The goal of Title 24 is to reduce energy use and make commercial and industrial buildings more efficient than required by the 2010 Title 24 standards.

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