Building a Mission‑Critical Manufacturing Facility in a Remote Location
ALK‑Abello Source Materials Project
A new 60,000 SF pharmaceuticals plant allowed ALK-Abelló, a global allergy solutions company, to consolidate five facilities formerly scattered across Idaho and Washington into one modern production facility.
The new facility is located close to the 600 acres of fields needed to grow raw materials to produce the company’s ground-breaking plant-based allergy immunotherapy tablets. Hoffman built extensive back-up systems to support mission critical freezers that hold the company’s entire supply of the allergen grown in the fields for that year.
Hoffman worked closely with subcontractors to meet inventory and supply-chain challenges in the remote location. Many local subcontractors were used, and a steel contractor was added to the team to make certain that steel could be obtained quickly. The Hoffman team’s close coordination resulted in no unscheduled impacts during construction to the Client’s ongoing production.
The Hoffman team worked through the harshest winter the region had seen in 30 years, thawing the ground and preventing it from refreezing to get the footings and foundations in.
Challenge
Maintaining an aggressive schedule through the toughest Central Washington winter in 30 years.
Solution
When an early hard freeze threatened the progress of footings and foundations, Hoffman used a system of tubes to circulate warm water at ground level. The tubes are covered with insultated carpet; when crews are ready to work the system is removed. When work is finished for the day the system is re-installed. This approach allowed work to continue even in the coldest weather.
