If you intend to construct an industrial manufacturing facility, here are two tips that you should keep in mind.
Ask your contractor to fit a screw-pile foundation
When your contractor starts to draw up the plans for your new facility, you should ask them to opt for a screw-pile foundation. As the name itself suggests, this type of foundation features a series of vertical columns (referred to as 'screw piles') that are designed to be screwed deep into the ground.
Foundations made with screw piles are particularly beneficial in instances where an industrial manufacturing facility is being built. There are several reasons for this. First, foundations of this kind can withstand the weight of extremely heavy loads and, as such, will not crack or buckle when exposed to weighty machinery. This is an important point to note, as most manufacturing facilities need to have multiple pieces of machinery, each of which may weigh several tonnes.
Second, screw-pile foundations take far less time to install than traditional foundations, as the construction crew do not need to use excavators to dig a trench before they can begin the installation process, and there is no concrete base that needs to dry out before the crew can proceed with the construction of the rest of the building. This, in turn, will mean that your manufacturing business will be up and running much sooner than if you had opted for a traditional foundation.
Take your future needs into consideration when deciding how large the building should be
Early on during the planning process, you will need to decide how large your new facility will be. When making this decision, it's important to take your future requirements into consideration. For example, if you hope to expand your enterprise at some point, you may need more space for both the additional machinery and inventory. If the facility you build now is too small for these extra things, you may then have to either build an extension or move to a larger building in a different location when you want to begin the expansion process.
An extension could easily take a year or more to complete (as it may take several months to apply for and receive planning permission), whilst moving to a bigger building elsewhere could cause major disruptions to your enterprise's day-to-day operations and may even lead to you losing some of your staff members (if the new location is too far away from their homes)
Conversely, if you build a facility now which is large enough to accommodate additional equipment and materials in the future, the process of expanding your manufacturing business in a few years' time will be far easier and less costly.
