Pedal to the Metal

Construction of Toyota Plant Rides on Fast Track

By Rob Patterson

From a distance it may look like a large barn in the middle of a field. But don't look for longhorns to roll off the line when production starts at Toyota's new truck manufacturing plant in San Antonio.

Toyota Motor Manufacturing is driving one of the biggest construction projects currently under way in Texas.

The 2-million-sq.-ft., $800 million truck manufacturing plant on the southern outskirts of San Antonio aims to roll its first vehicle off the line in October 2006. Four contractors in a pair of partnerships are working to meet that goal under hard-bid contracts. Construction should finish by December.

"The schedule is aggressive," said Paul Street, project leader for Toyota Motor Manufacturing. "It's a continuing challenge to bring costs lower and make the schedule faster."

A joint venture formed by Walbridge Aldinger of Detroit and Bartlett Cocke General Contractors of San Antonio is constructing approximately 60 percent of the building. The partnership laid the foundation and is responsible for the plant's assembly building; the pressing, welding and plastics shops; and the plant office.

Graycor Industrial Constructors of Homewood, Ill., and Thos. S. Byrne of Fort Worth combined forces for the remaining 40 percent of the structure. The team's major sections are the paint shop and the building's utilities.

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Shopping Locally, Thinking Globally "Toyota's desire is to source as locally as we can," Street said. "The overall requirement is automotive experience. The automotive industry has schedule and cost concerns that other industries don't quite have. So we put our requirement on automotive experience and then Toyota experience.

"We bid people that we've used before and understand the automotive industry. At the same time, it was understood that it would greatly behoove their presentation and opportunity if they came and made a joint-venture relationship with local contractors."

The structure itself is relatively straightforward: structural steel frame with insulated metal siding on concrete slab topped with a PVC membrane roof. One unique aspect of the complex is its single-slope roof with gutter downspout systems and no roof drains. An equipment gallery on the roof will enclose all the HVAC systems.

A structure with few complexities fits into Toyota's plan to amortize its large investment as rapidly as possible. "Toyota continues to remain profitable, which is something that my counterparts say is somewhat unique in the automotive industry," Street said.

"We are particularly schedule conscious. The entire corporate profit structure is set on making vehicles on a certain date. So no matter how many curve balls we throw at the contractors, they have to be able to adjust and align and roll with it and move forward with construction."

When completed, the plant will have the capability of manufacturing 150,000 full-size Toyota Tundra trucks per year. The site can also accommodate expansion of manufacturing facilities in the future.

Life in the Fast Lane W.T. Byler of Houston began clearing 700 acres of the 2,700-acre parcel in December 2003. In April 2004, Olmos Construction Co. of San Antonio started excavating and grading 4.5 million cu. yds. of dirt.

Lime was tilled into the dirt beneath the building to stabilize the soil's expansive nature. "We put our money into subgrade prep," Street said.

The plant building has a 7-in., unreinforced concrete slab throughout most of it. In areas with heavy manufacturing equipment, the slab was beefed up to about 12 to 14 ins. of reinforced concrete with No. 6 or 7 double mats.

"We put our first piece of steel up in the air in November," Street said. "We put up 16,000 tons of steel in eight weeks." At the peak period of erection, 8 cranes were at work on the frame.

Work on everything past the steel frame started on Feb. 1," Street added. Power from San Antonio's City Public Service was brought into the building on May 15.

In order to stay on schedule, a second shift was added. "A lot of work is done on the weekends," Street said. "Double time is paid on Sundays, so we try to steer clear of that."

With two contractor groups on the job, constant and ongoing coordination is a requirement. To facilitate that, the conference room walls in Toyota's main trailer are lined with sleek color graphs, plans and other visual aids that are updated weekly. "Toyota is very big on visual control. You can walk in and figure out where you are," Street added.

Gary Jaslovsky, project executive for the Graycor/Byrne partnership, called the job schedule intensive. "Getting our subcontractors on board, getting all the submittals for the items they are purchasing and getting them reviewed and approved was a significant hurdle during the first three months," he added. "And then the goal was getting the contractors out on the jobsite and getting them oriented."

The demands of the tight schedule continued as work got under way. "In the paint shop, there's work on basically four levels in the building including the roof," Jaslovsky said. "One of the challenges is keeping work moving in the right order and the right sequence. There's a lot of involvement with the field superintendents coordinating and directing so the work can happen as it was planned to."

Keeping costs down has been more daunting. "We benchmark our costs against previous projects and reduce them even more," Street said.

But Toyota has had to do so within what he called a new economic model with rising metal, chemical and petroleum prices. "Structural steel in the last couple of years has doubled along with everything else in metal-siding, HVAC ductwork and things like that," Street added.

Supporting the Infrastructure The plant site will include 1.5 to 2 million >> sq. ft. of facilities for onsite tier one and two suppliers. Toyota is also constructing a 93-acre railyard with 18 rail spurs for the delivery of parts and supplies. Bids were recently accepted for a 2-mi. test-track loop with a variety of special surfaces.

TxDOT is supporting the project with improvements and expansions of State Highway 422 and SH 16, which lead to the site. Bexar County is improving and expanding roadways leading into the plant.

Street described the design of the building situated on former farmland as resembling "a large hay barn." The company will extensively landscape 2,000 acres of the parcel and will prepare 700 acres of greenbelt as parkland along the Medina River and Leon Creek bordering the site as a gift to the city of San Antonio.

"Toyota is always concerned about making sure they blend in and become a part of the community," said project architect Brian Spencer of Toledo, Ohio-based SSOE , the architect and structural engineer for the plant. "They try to pay attention to the aesthetics while maintaining a practical approach."