Cramming 12 months worth of work into nine is rarely an easy proposition. Add to that an increased scope and a remote site without water or power and a contractor can be pushed to its limits. Then tack on a language barrier and a difficult project becomes an unrelenting challenge, even for a design-builder.

"A lot gets lost in translation," says Mike Waller, project executive for Brice Building Co., Birmingham, Ala. Brice and its joint venture partner, Marshall Construction LLC., Montgomery, Ala., designed and built a 500,000-sq-ft stamping plant in Luverne, Ala., for a South Korean company called SMART, Stamped Metal American Research Technologies. SMART Alabama LLC supplies interior door panels and floor pans to the Hyundai plant in Montgomery that began producing vehicles in May 2005.

Hyundai announced in 2002 that it would spend $1 billion to construct its first U.S. manufacturing plant in Montgomery to build the Sonata sedan and the Santa Fe, a small SUV. SMART Alabama is the largest of about 35 suppliers that have built plants in Alabama to provide parts to Hyundai.

The Luverne plant was SMART’s first manufacturing plant in the U.S. The firm was used to doing business as it does in Korea, so there were cultural and linguistic differences that resulted in many meetings and memos. For instance, it took many back and forths just to finalize the design of the small, 22,000-sq-ft office space because American designers are not used to Korean office layouts.

Obtaining design approvals took time. "Coordinating design is more difficult when dealing with people with limited English, and we were certainly limited in our Korean," says John Marshall, president of Marshall Construction. And language still is a problem.

Marshall’s role in the joint venture was to coordinate the design of the plant, which is its specialty. Brice coordinated the construction and self-performed about 20% of the concrete work.

Marshall is a small privately owned company that does most of its work using design-build delivery. It generally subcontracts out the architecture and engineering, but teams with a partner on larger jobs, such as the $25-million SMART project. The company normally does about $30 million a year and has 39 employees. "We subcontract everything out, design and all construction," Marshall says. On the SMART project, a major challenge was getting good, clear technical information, he says.

Building Blocks

The SMART plant was modeled largely on a plant in Korea, and the joint venture was tasked with gathering information about what the company wanted to build before developing a proposal. Getting answers was sometimes tedious. It was not uncommon to ask the same question three or four times in three or four different ways. "Often we thought they understood when they didn’t. We had to be very patient," says Brice’s Waller.

The project used a hybrid version of design-build, which included construction management. "It was a blend of CM and design-build," says Marshall. "We coordinated the design and the construction but we also had the transparency of a construction manager."

Unlike an agency construction manager, the joint venture signed the contracts with the subcontractors, as a true design-builder would do. But the joint venture shared information with the owner as if it were a construction manager, Marshall says. The joint venture also agreed on a percentage of profit at the beginning of the project. "That made the Koreans feel very comfortable, and made it a lower stress experience for them," Marshall says. He notes that the key to the project’s success was its openness. "The Koreans wanted the cheapest price and we offered them transparency," he says.

Every bid was shared with the owner. The Koreans wanted to see the costs, but it was Marshall’s job to help them understand which bids were best. The advantage of the local builder’s expertise is critical at that stage, says Marshall. "We know which subcontractors may be unable to perform. We know the quality of their work or whether they’re just too busy," he says. Marshall sent bid packages to companies it felt were qualified to perform. The project was so successful that the design-build/CM system became the delivery method of choice for most of Hyundai’s suppliers, say joint-venture officials.

Because of the fast-track nature of the project, there was no time for value engineering after the bid packages were issued. Instead, the design-builder budgeted different options during the design process. The owner was given options, with the advantages and disadvantages and costs of each option. The design was completed based on the SMART officials’ choices.

	Use of a hybrid design-build/CM delivery increased the Korean owners' confort level.

Some parts of the design did not always have the lowest cost. Several times, when bids came back, the owner wanted the packages sent out to several more companies. "It usually wasted more time rather than saving money. Never did a bid come back low enough to justify the two-week delay," Marshall says.

The biggest lesson Marshall learned was the benefit of transparency. "We use it on all plants now," Marshall says. "With profit margins as low as they are today, there is no reason not to show the numbers to the owner," he says. "Usually they’re shocked at how small the profit margin is and they mostly feel sorry for us."

The scope of the project included a 120,000-sq-ft stamping area, a 360,000-sq- ft assembly area and the 22,000-sq-ft office. The building has a structural steel frame, with 98-ft long and 67-ft wide long-span bays.

Tons of Fun

	SMART stamping plant is heavy on robotics to meet surging demand for Hyundai vehicles.

The stamping area was designed to hold four large presses capable of stamping metal sheets with a force of 2,300 tons per sq in. The 20-ft deep foundation for the stamping pits had walls 4 ft thick and base slabs nearly 6 ft deep. The press area has a ceiling height of 61 ft and seven overhead cranes, along with one freestanding crane. A 550-ft long scrap tunnel runs the length of the building and connects the four press pits. The 34-ft high assembly area holds hundreds of robotic welding machines that assemble the stamped parts into completed components.

The design had to accommodate very large and complex machines with strict tolerances. It required detailed coordination with the equipment manufacturers to ensure that the foundations were built to their specifications. To add to the complexity, the owner changed equipment manufacturers and equipment layout after design began. That, in turn, delayed the electrical design, which had its own set of challenges because of the international sourcing of the plant equipment and their varying power requirements.

Despite the fast track, the design team could not force the owner to make quick decisions. "It took many phone calls, four- to-six hour design meetings and many file transfers," Waller said.

The design also needed a fair amount of flexibility. The design-build team knew the loads and the machines the building would house, but it did not have the exact layout. "We designed around the total projected load, but there were a lot of details we did not know," says Waller. "We had a responsive design team, so we were able to stay ahead of it. They kept an open mind and didn’t panic."

With the delay in the final layout, it was the design-build process that made it possible to meet the tight schedule, says project manager William Tynes. "Getting approval for the various bid packages slowed the project down, which made the schedule even tighter," says Tynes. "The owner required multiple approvals and just when the company thought an issue had been resolved, the owner would come back with something totally different."

The delay in the steel package delayed the fabrication and, in turn, delayed the installation to the point where the subcontractor had just 10 weeks to complete the job. That required working seven days a week. The installation started in January and had to be completed by March 9. "It was a very tight schedule at the worst time of year," says Tynes. Then the owner added another stamping pit to the design after the steel erection had begun, which meant it could not be built until after the steel erection was completed and required shoring and construction in a tight area, Tynes said.

All parts of the project were designed and built in sequence. The delays in obtaining design approvals tightened the schedule, but never slowed the project. "We never had to wait. But we got as close to waiting as we could get," says Tynes. The delay in the steel came when the design-builder authorized one steel company, but the owner changed its mind and decided to go with another company. "We got it straight, but during that time, the steel wasn’t being ordered," Tynes says.

Adding to the fast-track challenge was the site’s remote location, which is about 45 miles south of Montgomery. The concrete supplier had to bring a portable concrete plant to the job, which required 25,000 cu yd of concrete.

	Fast-track construction on a massive scale precluded value engineering, but different options were budgeted during the design process.

Power also was a problem. While Alabama Power built a substation to service the plant, it was not completed in time for the plant construction. Temporary power was used until Alabama Power brought in a large portable generator late in the job to help with equipment installation. There also was no water at the site, which required the builder to provide water trucks.

Site work also was a challenge. The owner cleared the site and poured the building pad, but several changes to the original layout required additional civil design and construction. The site work included grading, storm and sanitary sewers, potable and fire water lines, asphalt and concrete paving and landscaping over the 50-acre site. "When we got involved, the overall civil plan didn’t match with the size of the building," says Tynes.

While the owner added multiple changes to the job and still wanted the schedule shortened, Tynes says the project is the best he has worked on. "With all of the challenges, we had good results," he says. "The project came in on time and on budget."

(All photos courtesy of Brice Building Co, ©2005 M. Lewis Kennedy, Jr.)