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SSOE is providing design and engineering services for constructing a new greenfield solar cell manufacturing facility for a solar client. The project, once complete, will span approximately 1 million SF and will be designed to produce 5 GW of solar cell manufacturing per year.

Our team supported the client throughout the site selection and acquisition process, preparing a site due diligence report analyzing environmental, utility, zoning, site development, and permitting constraints. Our services also included master planning and early site development plans, including mass grading and stormwater management plans and specifications.

As part of the project, SSOE has worked closely with a Chinese Design Institute to assist in localizing the client’s technology used overseas to ensure compliance with all U.S. codes and standards. This involved extensive evaluation of the design basis, hazardous chemical usages and storage volumes, egress requirements, and modular construction methodologies. In this analysis, SSOE was able to optimize the facility layout to suit a uniform structural layout, fostering a modular concept for the cleanroom space of the production building.

Additionally, SSOE spent the early stages of the Schematic Design focusing on the most critical and highest value systems within the design. Through discrete analyses of the cleanroom classification, water purification, recycling, wastewater strategy, and process utilities, our team refined these concepts to provide more cost certainty to the client and the contracting community.

Our team also concentrated design efforts on critical path items, such as early earthwork packages, preliminary structural design including steel mill orders, and major facility equipment specifications to facilitate early procurement for long-lead items. As such, SSOE and the client have maintained the overall project schedule and the anticipated start of production timelines.

Construction on the project is expected to begin later this year with production beginning at the end of 2026.

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SSOE was selected by Continental AG to perform engineering, procurement, and construction management (EPCM) services for their new 215,000 SF state-of-the-art manufacturing facility located in New Braunfels, Texas. The plant manufactures products for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) that will help with assisted and automated driving. With ADAS in high demand by car manufacturers, this new facility positions Continental to expand its U.S. research and development footprint and manufacturing capabilities.

The new, future-oriented greenfield campus includes a production facility, office space, warehouse, guard shack, technical building, and cafeteria. The project also included campus infrastructure, integral roads, parking, truck docks, and other site requirements. The innovative, edgy design of the facility integrates with its environmental surroundings and fits the needs of a modern-world production environment.

A high priority for Continental, the facility was designed as a model for energy efficiency and sought LEED® Silver certification upon completion. To help the client meet this goal, SSOE capitalized on our extensive LEED certification experience and our vast network of LEED Accredited Professionals to help formulate a design strategy that fulfilled the client’s sustainability needs and expectations. This included an energy-efficient building shape and innovative solutions in building technologies. The project ultimately received LEED® Gold certification.

SSOE has extensive knowledge of Continental’s specifications and project execution preferences and has delivered successful facilities to them for over a decade. Our recent experience working together on Continental’s “Greenfield Plant of the Future” in Central Mexico was instrumental in leveraging lessons learned to drive efficiency into the facility design.

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A long-time consumer products client turned to SSOE to replicate a previous automatization project to provide design for a new conveying system into a robotic program. Before Covid, the client struggled to find reliable resources to offload empty laundry detergent bottles. Over time, staffing became more challenging as the client was forced to staff the line with management personnel to meet order requirements. This situation was similar to what had occurred at another plant where SSOE was hired to design an automated system for the depalletization of reshippers from the ATU.

The original process included truck delivery empty bottle pallets, which were then manually unpacked by human operators. Operators offloaded layers of empty bottle cases onto a conveyor where the cases were then moved to the filling lines.

Once Covid hit, the client lost nearly all ability to offload the empty bottles. As a solution, SSOE provided the design to install a robot to load the layers of empty bottle cases onto a conveyor. From there, another robot would remove the tie sheet layer and place those into a bin, repeating the process layer after layer.

SSOE provided mechanical, electrical, and structural engineering to tie in the new conveying system. We designed the overhead conveyor supports, a new spiral conveyor, and foundation modifications. Although we were duplicating a similar project, SSOE faced a challenge in working at a different location. During the first project, our team was on-site within minutes to confirm measurements and talk to operators. For this project, we relied on information gathered from fewer site visits and scans to accurately predict measurements. After installing the robots, our client could reduce its workforce from eight operators to five. Since we copied some of the design from the first project, and we had prior knowledge of the equipment and vendors, SSOE was able to provide the client with a reduced estimate for the project’s design saving them about 20%.

SSOE was able to provide the client with a reduced design estimate saving $242,400.

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Through value engineering activities within the assembly and stamping areas, we provided more than $8 million in cost savings to Toyota.

SSOE provided design services for Toyota’s San Antonio plant, which spans more than 2 million SF, and continues to provide services for multiple projects as the facility grows. Our familiarity with the plant, on-site construction support services, and responsiveness make us a valuable asset to Toyota. Based on our intimate knowledge of this facility and our successful long-term working relationship with the client, Toyota selected SSOE as the A/E firm of choice for this program.

A number of factors drove this significant program. Changes to the Toyota Tundra model required a different assembly footprint to accommodate new options. Additionally, Toyota moved Sequoia production from their Indiana plant to San Antonio. This relocation called for alterations in multiple areas to house the new line. SSOE provided all architectural and engineering design services, including on-site representation and permitting for this program.

Our team leveraged technologies such as laser scanning, Cintoo, SharePoint, and Plangrid for file sharing and construction administration.

In total, the program affected eight plant areas including stamping, welding, Forma (an on-site supplier who shares space within the plant), Avanzar (an on-site supplier who feeds the assembly shop), Vuteq (a Tier 1 supplier), assembly shops, the east parking lot, and the dock area. Using a staggered approach with a significant focus on schedule, we coordinated the expansion of multiple areas simultaneously. Our team utilized non-production times to complete work without halting production.

SSOE coordinated a revised process layout for the assembly shop expansion, positioning noncritical spaces to the west and maintaining the roof pitch from the existing area to the new expansion. These value engineering measures eliminated the need for a step-up in the roof, new roof drains in the existing roof, new storm drainage piping, and existing structural member reinforcement to mitigate water ponding. These creative design concepts provided Toyota with savings of approximately $750,000.

For the stamping shop expansion, we began with a compressed air usage study. The results showed the existing system could support the new laser weld process with minor piping modifications. This discovery eliminated the need for a utility building expansion and associated equipment, providing a cost savings of $5 million. We continued value engineering within the stamping shop with our approach to the sheet receiving area. As sheet receiving is critical to the stamping process and cannot be shut down for an extended time, we developed a construction sequencing plan to reconfigure delivery to the area. This plan allowed the area to remain functional, saving Toyota approximately $2.5 million in lost production costs.

SSOE successfully executed this program though the strategic coordination of projects led by an experienced project manager and team with intimate knowledge of the entire facility. Our team collaborated with the client daily and leveraged on-site design reviews with the affected process groups to ensure our designs met their business needs and goals.

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SSOE worked with Nikola Corporation, a leading designer and manufacturer of heavy-duty commercial battery-electric vehicles (BEV), fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEV), and energy infrastructure solutions, as a design partner for their new manufacturing facility in Coolidge, Arizona.

Now complete, the zero-emissions facility has the capacity to produce Class 8 commercial semi-trucks. The facility features in-house offices, conference rooms, and support facilities which showcase Nikola technology and culture.

As part of the initial facility master planning, SSOE provided a conceptual site layout and arrangements for the envisioned facility, including block diagram floor plans. Our team presented a conceptual artistic rendering for the exterior facility design in its surroundings to provide a realistic representation of the proposed facility, drawing from examples of desired building aesthetics provided by Nikola.

The SSOE / Walbridge team helped the Phase 1 master plan vision into a reality by providing design and construction management services.

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A well-known electric vehicle manufacturer sought to build a new greenfield facility to produce compact sedans, SUVs, and pickup trucks. Based on previous successes with this client, SSOE was selected as the structural Engineer of Record (EOR) for this project. We provided full structural engineering and design, in addition to fire protection code review and permitting for the 500,000 SF multi-level general assembly shop and paint shop areas of the new facility.

Our staff integrated with the client’s engineers and other consultants early in the project. The team executed the project using an owner-directed construction approach, involving a hybrid EPC delivery method with a hyper fast-track schedule. The schedule required the seamless hand-off of steel detailing packages among design, procurement, and construction teams. To maintain a constant and organized workflow, SSOE leveraged native Revit functions to code and communicate all activities. Our practice ensured each group was continually aware of what was being released to them, resulting in little to no rework, as we reviewed and released each coded piece for the next step in real-time. Proven effective, our method was shared with other design consultants and the client’s structural modeling team as a best practice.

In addition to the efficiencies gained through Revit tools, SSOE also committed to a 48-hour turnaround time on shop drawing reviews to meet the project schedule. This proved challenging, as some steel submittals consisted of more than 200 pages with multiple submittals per week. To meet this goal, we utilized SDS/2 (Structural Detailing Steel) software to enable 3D model-based shop drawing reviews. Leveraging the model gave the project team and stakeholders the ability to closely analyze the design, streamlining the review process.

This project’s intricate delivery approach and expedited schedule required innovation and agility in its execution. Our ability to drive efficiency through the use of technology and seamless collaboration with the project team was key to its successful delivery. Based on SSOE’s continued performance with this client, our structural team was selected to design the facility’s warehouse, while our architectural team was selected to design the cathode building.

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