The most successful architecture and construction projects in Kansas City are executed with careful planning and consideration. Industrial projects are no exception. To maximize the impact of these specialized facilities, you need a trusted design-build partner who has the experience and insight into realizing your capacity and efficiency needs.
Otherwise, without proper planning, your facility may fail to meet expectations. Even worse, it could hinder productivity or even cause safety hazards for employees.
Before your next project, consider these helpful tips on how to create the most efficient industrial facility.
1. Facility Capacity and Space
The arrangement of your industrial facility space will have a significant impact on your workflow and the safety of your employees. To design your space, you must have a thorough knowledge of the ins and outs of your production line.
Arranging a facility that is efficient and safe is especially important when manufacturing raw materials or finished products. An optimal floor design will ensure the integrity of your product.
Ask yourself these questions when designing the floor of your warehouse:
- When materials enter the building, where will they go?
- If materials are kept in storage, how are they organized?
- If your facility has storage, how is inventory processed?
- How are your outgoing materials packaged and shipped?
- What equipment and processes are required during production?
- What are the relationships between the various spaces needed to function properly?
- What office and support spaces are needed? How do they relate to each other?
- How many dock and drive-in doors are needed, and how do they relate to your internal processes?
Gathering this information will aid your architects and designers in creating the most efficient space possible. This planning process will help avoid inefficiencies, while keeping safety measures in mind. For example, support columns should be placed such that they’re appropriately load-bearing, but also thoughtfully placed, location-wise, to maximize free area that streamlines the workflow.
2. Facility Height and Clearance
Most often, industrial facilities will utilize overhead space to their advantage. Hanging conveyors and tall pallet racking can optimize space and workflow.
Review your production process and determine if the height of your building can be used during manufacturing. Can your storage be condensed simply by stacking taller? Can you utilize equipment that hangs from the ceiling?
These operations also require equipment such as forklifts and other indoor vehicles to accommodate the equipment. These vehicles and other tools need storage spaces themselves, which is another element to consider when designing your space.
3. Facility Reinforcement
After designing your space or throughout production, your facility will inevitably encounter heavy loads that the foundation and floor slab must accommodate.
It’s imperative to establish flooring and select footings for your employees that will hold up to the stress. Most warehouses require concrete grade beam and or pier foundations with steel reinforcing that can withstand the pressure of heavy traffic.
4. Facility Access
Almost everything in your industrial facility will enter and exit through the shipping and receiving bays. The ease of receiving and sending out trucks of material is key to smooth manufacturing.
If your production requires both inbound and outbound vehicles, your access space must allow easy movement for multiple large vehicles. Designing an efficient traffic flow is paramount to successful manufacturing.
Often with industrial facilities, adding more shipping bays isn’t an option, so plan your access spaces with future needs in mind.
5. Facility Ventilation
Bring fresh air into your facility while expelling the bad air that comes with production. Ventilation is essential for the health and safety of employees as well as the maintaining of the warehouse’s integrity
Moving air at proper speeds through a well-designed ventilation system will remove harsh contaminants, keeping your facility safe and cool.
Evaluate how each space within your facility will have access to clean, cool air, and how that air can be properly cycled in and out of the building.
6. Facility Lighting
As with ventilation, the lighting of your industrial facility should not be overlooked when designing the floor plan. An enormous space with large industrial equipment needs ample lighting to ensure the safety and productivity of your warehouse.
Beyond coordinating with an electrical designer, take the opportunity to install skylights where you can make use of natural light.
Also keep in mind how employees will access these lights when a bulb needs to be replaced. If equipment is necessary, think about where this equipment can be stored such that it will not hinder the production line.
The Design-Build Approach with Rose
When planning a construction project for an industrial facility, it’s important to look at every angle and plan accordingly, in order to ensure that your warehouse is tailored for success.
Rose Design Build, Inc offers full design and construction services for businesses throughout Kansas City. We take into consideration every aspect of architecture and design—from capacity to lighting—so that we can build your project all within the framework of one company.
Connect with us about your industrial facility project and learn more about how the design-build approach can offer you the most efficient and successful results!