Securing a food grade dairy rubber-ware factory's future

The 2010/11 Canterbury earthquakes forced the world-leading global supplier of specialised food grade diary rubber-ware, Skellerup, to redesign and relocate from their 78 year old 18-building factory spread across multiple sites, into one site.

Beca and Skellerup, together with Calder-Stewart as the design and build contractor and Inovo as programme coordinator took a collaborative approach to the project, all while continuing production uninterrupted.

Beca was brought on board in mid-2013 to help form Project Viking and provide expertise in the preliminary design and procurement of civil and building works, including water supply and drainage, people and traffic flows, hazardous goods management and resource consenting. Together the team worked to move existing manufacturing equipment into a single streamlined building on a new site. The complexity of the old site required significant untangling of multiple manufacturing process streams and associated infrastructure. The biggest challenge, however, was ensuring continuity of supply to Skellerup customers throughout the transition phase of moving production equipment from one site to another. Careful scheduling as well as the creation and maintenance of a detailed Building Information Model (BIM) proved invaluable in providing the surety of outcome needed in a carefully orchestrated move.

A large part of the success of Project Viking was the bringing together of the differing expertise of all four parties in a Best-for-Project approach. Without the skillsets each party brought to the project, Project Viking would not have been the success it is today.

Awards

• 2018 New Zealand Commercial Project Awards – Supreme Award
• 2017 ACENZ Gold Award – Collaborative Working Agreement Category

Image: Skellerup Project Viking Front facade on opening day. Credit David Alexander