OFFICIAL SOD-TURNING CEREMONY FOR ILLAWARRA MEATS’ ASRS FREEZER PROJECT NSW

Total Construction’s Engineering Construction Group is excited to have been awarded the Design & Construct contract for Illawarra Meats’ Automatic Retrieval and Storage System (ASRS) Freezer Project in Southern NSW. The project is Illawarra Meat’s leading foray into Industry 4.0 with the adoption of full automation for storing and retrieving product to be incorporated into the building.

The 917m2 freezer, cool room and dispatch building will be constructed on the site adjoining Illawarra Meats’ current facility located at Fairy Meadows, Illawarra and interconnected to their existing process facility.

The ECG project team have been working closely with Illawarra Meats’ management team and ASRS team since September last year to develop the design and derive a budget that met Illawarra Meats’ needs, which culminated in being given the go ahead for the project in April this year!

To mark the commencement of construction works, Total Construction held an official sod-turning ceremony on site with Illawarra Meats’ owners at the end of March.

This project win follows on from other ECG successes for Total of late, with recent projects being secured for George Western Foods (GWF) in QLD, a large pet food manufacture (cannot be named) also in QLD, a facility design project for Hanseatic Foods in NSW, and major alteration works for a large milk powder producer in VIC.

The Illawarra Meats project follows on from other ECG successes for Total of late, with completion of works near the end of 2019 for George Western Foods (GWF) by Total’s Queensland team that has led to securing further works for GWF in January which are set to start mid this year. This is typical of Total’s approach; in that we pride ourselves on becoming the go to support to our clients for all of their construction needs… big or small. It is all about the journey as the ECG team puts it!

The same month ECG and Total’s Brisbane team secured yet another project for a new packaging room for a large pet food manufacture (cannot be named) south of Brisbane, with works well underway!

All demolition and construction work on site have to be conducted in a full live environment, one that the Queensland team is more than capable to manage. All site movements and activities are carefully coordinated with the client’s operations team to ensure production and day to day business is not disrupted.

Another project of note was the fit out works on a milk powder plant in Victoria that required the ECG team to oversee an intensive amount of works that needed to be completed over a short client shutdown period. To make it even more difficult to meet the stringent timeframe, everything and everybody entering the site needed to be completely free from any foreign particulates. This meant all tools and equipment needed to be thoroughly cleaned down prior to entering the site and all staff and contractors had to pass through a hygiene station where they changed into captive boots and work wear. Talk about a Covid-19 prequal!!

Total’s Victorian Operations team were up to the challenge and successfully completed the job within the time allowed and to the quality the client expected. In fact… the project went so well that Total have been asked to complete more works on site that are required in coming months.

Another exciting project for ECG is with Hanseatic Foods in NSW, part of the Rockpool Group of companies. Hanseatic engaged Total’s ECG team to assist in designing and costing of a new 5000m2 facility. Although still in the design stage of the project’s evolution, it is hoped that construction works will commence in August this year, with the completed fitted out facility being handed over by April 2021.

Totals ability to provide advice and guidance to clients that require specialist construction works in the manufacturing space is well recognised and our ECG team’s process engineering skills and experience in production facilities  provide a real value add to our clients.