E-Coat and Resin Facility
NPA Coatings Inc.
NPA Coatings Inc. (NPAC), a manufacturer of chemical coating products, purchased a 45 acre re-purposed brownfield site from the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee to build a new facility to manufacture e-coat, acrylic resins, and paint for the automotive industry.
SSOE was selected to provide an Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) delivery method using a technically-led open book approach. NPAC is fully integrated in all activity, design reviews, procurement, and construction while SSOE offers a single point of responsibility – consistent project leadership from FEL to commissioning. Construction planning began from the project start, which prevents delays in the process install due to site construction and early site / structure packages, while eliminating waste and hidden costs in design hand-off to procurement, fabrication, and installation. Because of the all-encompassing scope of this project, SSOE drew from its extensive bench of engineers and architects from our chemical, facilities, and construction management groups to form an experienced team to work closely with NPAC.
An EPC open book strategy gives SSOE full project responsibility from FEL to commissioning, using one contract between SSOE and NPAC to cover the entire project. SSOE will bid and award hundreds of pieces of equipment and construction contracts, while NPAC will be fully involved in the decision making process and review of all quotations. A target budget will be prepared following the FEL work with a recommended contingency agreed by both SSOE and NPAC, ultimately leading to a reduction of the budget to offset overall risk.
The design includes translation from international practices to U.S. standards, for full safety and environmental compliance, including support for VOC / HAP emissions estimates, building classification evaluation, and storage for chemical compatibility hazardous materials storage, possible flood plain siting issues, and building height constraints within a nearby FAA regulated flight path.
SSOE is performing substantial FEL design to address all major code and safety considerations and resolve multiple design variables to define and provide cost certainty to the facility scope and enable funding approval by the parent company board in Asia. Based on the strength of that design process, NPAC will be able to evaluate and include substantial process controls upgrades in the design basis which will substantially improve product consistency, product quality, and employee safety.
Related to the building envelope, in addition to architectural design, SSOE’s facilities team is providing civil, structural, mechanical, and electrical engineering including fire protection services. NPAC hopes to achieve LEED status for the project and design is ongoing in accordance with pursuit of LEED certification.
Streamlining steel package delivery with BIM2Fab® Steel
To meet the aggressive project schedule, SSOE plans to leverage our BIM2Fab Steel services, an innovative application of virtual design technology that seamlessly integrates steel design and fabrication to deliver exceptional quality. BIM2Fab Steel offers multiple advantages, from minimized risk to reduced cost and schedule—in this case, compressing the schedule by at least 4 weeks and saving NPAC time, trouble, and money in the process. Our BIM2Fab Steel models save weeks on construction schedules and can be used for clash detection and coordination across trades, ensuring a cleaner, better delivered finished product.
In close collaboration with the client and steel fabricators, SSOE’s BIM2Fab Steel team can release fabrication-ready drawings just days, as opposed to weeks, after design documents are released. SSOE will supply detail and erection sheets as well as CNC files for automated fabrication machines, further cutting down the time required to deliver structural members to the field.
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We found ourselves in need of a more robust tool to enhance resource forecasting and staff assignment capabilities. Instead of waiting for the perfect tool, we’re building it. SSOE’s in-house technology team has developed and piloted a tool that aims to forecast optimal staff mix and duration for new projects against existing workload to better understand capacity and manage resources efficiently. Additionally, the tool will allow teams to estimate staff requirements and identify gaps.
SSOE is utilizing Microsoft Copilot to significantly enhance work efficiency and accuracy across various departments. Copilot is accessible to all staff after training. Key areas of application include using it as a writing assistant, for idea generation, document summarization and generation, research assistant, excel assistant, programming code assistant, language translations, product comparison and data analysis. Use of Copilot has become part of the everyday life of SSOE employees who have identified key ways it can help them become more efficient with their daily tasks as well as more accurate in their deliverables.
Today, 75% of SSOE employees are have taken the training and have access to Copilot, with a goal of 100% of employees using Copilot by October 1, 2025.
We helped our client visualize and optimize façade design for occupant comfort—long before breaking ground through the use of the Autodesk Forma tool. It allows the designer to rapidly experiment with the building’s geometry and façade design to discover the most suitable form, prioritizing quality of spaces and comfort for end uses, especially in extreme climates (daylighting and microclimate analysis tools) at the project’s exact geographic location, using location-specific environmental data.
Discover how SSOE is using Autodesk Forma to improve sustainability outcomes for industrial projects: SSOE Group: Improving sustainability outcomes for industrial projects with Autodesk Forma
SSOE has developed a proof-of-concept to use an AI Agent to act as a Master Engineer trained in SSOE’s processes, best-known-methods, and trainings. Our data structure is being remodeled to enable better use of our proprietary knowledge to train the agent on the ‘SSOE way’ of engineering.
SSOE is actively piloting AI copilots that use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to streamline both design and development tasks, transforming how our teams interact with software and each other.
By integrating copilot engines into platforms like Revit and GitHub, we’re enabling users to prompt complex actions using simple, conversational commands. In Revit, this means automating tasks such as cleaning up parameter data, managing annotations and dimensions, and organizing sheets—without writing scripts. These automations can be shared across project teams, accelerating workflows and reducing manual effort.
Similarly, our internal Software Development Community is leveraging GitHub Copilot to expedite coding tasks. Developers can generate and refine code using NLP prompts, tapping into GitHub’s enterprise knowledge base to move faster from concept to implementation.
Together, these tools represent a shift from traditional, expert-driven scripting to intuitive, AI-assisted collaboration, unlocking new levels of efficiency and scalability across our projects.
Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) is SSOE’s enterprise-wide project delivery platform. We partner with the Autodesk Product team and have research access. Use of the AI Assistant for project specifications allows our design teams, owners, and general contractors the ability to query the project specifications for quality, answers, and more rapid responses to RFIs, submittals, or issues.