Page 46 - Food&Drink magazine April-May 2023

PLANT DESIGN & FITOUT
Greenfield 101: is the grass greener?
Greenfield projects face many hurdles that can be costly and a major disruption to business. Beca senior associate Business Development,
Kim Featherstone, outlines the big decisions that need to be made to ensure the grass really is greener.
BEFORE launching into a Greenfield project, it’s important to firstly establish why all other brownfield options have been exhausted. Greenfield projects have major hurdles including cost, time, and business interruption.
There must be a major driver for change agreed within the business, that has overridden all these challenges. This driver for change (quality, cost, or schedule) forms the cornerstone project objective and will heavily influence decision making down the greenfield path.
Once a greenfield direction has been established, a User Requirements Specification (URS) is a great place to start with what is desired from the new site. List each item and prioritise into “must have”, “nice to have” or “future aspiration”.
These upfront thoughts provide dividends in later decision making when inevitable constraints are applied. Below are some of the big decisions to navigate at the start to help make the grass truly greener!
SELECT SITE BEFORE MASTERPLANNING
The most critical part of firming up the scope and capital cost of the project is to have a selected site. Previous projects have shown us that theoretical masterplans have not translated
ABOVE: Frucor Suntory’s $400m greenfield Swanbank facility in Queensland is setting a global benchmark for operational performance, sustainability, and digitisation.
BELOW: Thomas Foods’ Murray Bridge processing plant a global showcase of advanced food manufacturing.
easily to the selected site. Key areas that are impacted include: • Latent conditions &
assumptions i.e., cut to fill, geotechnical, stormwater requirements;
• traffic management – i.e., the position, elevations of heavy vehicle access and flows; and
• operational flows of materials, product and people are all impacted by site geometry.
• The procurement strategy of the land purchase, particularly for food and beverage has a major implication on the availability of land parcels. Specific requirements include:
• Access to major customers, suppliers, raw materials, and a skilled workforce;
• HV Power, high-capacity water, sewer, and natural gas; and
• clearances from heavy industry, residential etc. With any site selection there
are trade-offs. Clients need to understand the ratios of capital/ time vs. operational cost factors that can be incurred over the next 50+ years such as customer freight, raw material, and staffing.
Land acquisition can take a considerable amount of time from approaching the market to contract execution, with some options requiring time to prepare the site before possession.
Once a site is selected, statutory planning kicks into gear, with technical assessments and issues such as levels of state significance to address. As the bureaucratic
wheels start turning – often very slowly – interactions with federal, state, and local governments begin.
GETTING SERVICES TO SITE
While design and procurement processes are largely controlled by the client, bringing services to site is dependent on government or other service providers that are not directly accountable to the client. The quantity and quality of project design management required in this area cannot be underestimated.
Different options can vary greatly in time and cost to bring the required services to site. In some instances, this will drive major scope decisions about onsite or other means of supply, particularly regarding HV power and natural gas. Many sites look to avoid bringing natural gas to site altogether for sustainability or cost drivers. For example, one of Beca’s clients found the capital cost of a natural gas pipeline and the operational cost to deliver it made it completely unviable financially.
With many clients now incorporating some type of onsite behind the meter power generation, the connection with the grid and HV supply needs to be understood. The location can determine many factors both technically and commercially in terms of what can be sold back to the grid at what rate.
Understanding the generation intent early helps provide the
46 | Food&Drink business | April/May 2023 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au