commentAn industrywide clamor for sustainability is spurring projects centering around the growing demand for green products and leaner production, designers say.
Manufacturing and industrial process projects in the consumer and alternative- energy sectors show “significant recovery and activity,” says John Palmer, global director of electronics and advanced technology at Englewood, Colo.-based CH2M-Hill. The firm has design projects for owners in consumer products, mines, semiconductor wafer production, solar panels and other sectors. “We're seeing upticks in consumer products and a tremendous increase in metals and mining projects,” says Palmer.
Sustainability's import is widespread. Designers report demand for projects to retrofit facilities for energy-use reductions as well as to design new plants for the rising tide of green products, such as advanced solar panels and electric cars.
Production of green products and technology in the auto sector has released a spate of design activity, as evidenced by this year's Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt models, which are powered by new lithium-ion battery technology. For example, anticipating Leaf production when the car's $1.3-billion, 1.3-million-sq-ft Smyrna, Tenn., battery plant is completed next year, designers already are formulating and building charging stations for the hybrid vehicles.
Even as Nissan is constructing thousands of charging stations around the country this year, designers are responding to the market with new charging-station designs and services. Designers say the charging-station market—like many markets in alternative energy—is fertile ground for smaller firms, such as Canton, Mich.-based Duo-Gard Industries Inc., a designer and fabricator of solar-outfitted canopy structures and buildings.
Duo-Gard's in-house fabrication capacity and experience with solar application has given the firm entree to markets this year “that haven't been readily available until now,” says Michael Arvidson, Duo-Gard executive vice president.
The industry's whole-hearted adoption of sustainability has manufacturers pushing designers to new levels of innovation for lean, sustainable facilities and cleaner processes. As General Motors ramps up production of its Volt electric hybrid car this summer at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant, the company simultaneously is constructing a six-acre, 264,000 sq-ft, 516-KW photovoltaic solar array to help power the plant.
Design opportunities in solar power are “becoming more significant as it's become more economically viable,” Palmer says. For designers in solar markets, “there is a lot of activity among smaller companies right now” because of the proliferation of small or specialized solar projects in the market, he says. Palmer points to government stimulus injections as a boon to domestic solar markets this year.
More than ever before, top designers in the sector these days are melding domestic and international work. Globally, CH2M-Hill is engaged in design services on about “20 to 25 active solar projects currently,” says Palmer. The firm is designing “plants for everything across the supply chain, from silicon substrate to solar panels,” and often handles construction as well on projects in India, China, and Singapore. However, “a large portion of that work begins in the U.S.,” with American designers, owners and technology, says Michael Avant, CH2M-Hill's global director of life sciences.
While Green Bay, Wis.-based Foth Cos. tend to a recovering U.S. economy, global demand has propelled the company around the world. For example, the firm has projects under way in manufacturing and industrial process in South America, India and Russia for undisclosed clients. “Capital spending in consumer products is up across the board, but there is greater spending abroad,” says Foth CEO Tim Weyenberg. “We're being pulled internationally by our clients.”
In vying for design projects in the U.S., owners “used to ask only for competency in engineering, but they're asking us different questions now,” Weyenberg says. “They want to see what we know about Six Sigma, LEED and sustainability.”
Sign in to Comment
To write a comment about this story, please sign in. If this is your first time commenting on this site, you will be required to fill out a brief registration form. Your public username will be the beginning of the email address that you enter into the form (everything before the @ symbol). Other than that, none of the information that you enter will be publically displayed.