The complexity of the Amway project has required strong communication among the project’s team members, including, L-R, Farouque Khattak and Joe Ziegler from Amway, Ben Wickstrom from Erhardt Construction, Greg Lentz from FTC&H and Brianne Fisher, also of Erhardt. PHOTO: JOE BOOMGAARD

By Joe Boomgaard | MiBiz
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

ADA ­— For the first time in the company’s 52-year history, Amway Corp. will open a food processing facility in West Michigan and that’s led to a significant investment in renovating two buildings at its main manufacturing plant in West Michigan.

After a strategic evaluation of its global manufacturing operations, Amway decided to end production of several Nutrilite protein products at its Lakeview, Calif. plant and move those several lines of production to Ada, closer to many sources of material and into an underused portion of its sprawling complex along the Grand River.

“We’ve got to look at what is the best way for us to not just supply North America, but also globally. We did a study that indicated in many cases, our manufacturing platform may not be the most efficient one,” Farouque Khattak, VP of global product supply at Amway Corp., told MiBiz. “We had long lead times and our ability to respond was not the best. We carried high inventories to make up for that. Any time you do that, you have higher cost. Since we had space here, we wanted to utilize the space. And we had a very productive workforce, an experienced workforce. Clearly, this was the right place to put that operation.”

By moving the operation to Ada, Khattak said the company expects to realize a more efficient manufacturing process, one that focuses on safety and the highest quality standards yet increases productivity with fewer people than previously worked at the California plant.

“We have many years of experience working on better control of quality systems and that gave us more confidence that we could transition to food and it would not be a big shift for us,” Khattak said.

Simultaneously, Amway will debut a new manufacturing process and formulation for the products, as well as new in-house manufactured blown-plastic packaging, said Joe Ziegler, quality assurance manager at Amway Corp.

The nature of the material involved in the product requires a vertical, gravity-fed manufacturing line, meaning the company must expand its footprint upward to support blenders and mixers and other new equipment. While Amway currently has its own testing labs for its consumer products, it will also need to build a separate test facility specifically for its food lines.

“This is a part of a bigger piece of supply chain optimization. We have the infrastructure in place, and basically, we need to modify it and upgrade it to get to the standards we need for food manufacturing,” Ziegler said of building 31 at the Ada campus.

Part of those modifications will be obvious as construction crews will soon begin a two-story addition to the facility to accommodate the vertical flow of material, but that is supported by a great deal of behind-the-scenes work to the building’s foundation, said Ben Wickstrom, EVP of Erhardt Construction, the contractor for the project.

“We looked at what type of deep foundation system can we design and implement, the installation of which would fit underneath the roof that’s already there,” Wickstrom said. “We wanted to get it in without tearing the roof off and be sensitive to the other (uses) on the campus.”

Erhardt crews decided to use micropiles that went 55 feet below the surface to shore up the structure to ensure it would support the heavy loads from the new equipment, said Brianne Fisher, senior project manager at Erhardt Construction. Even though the 24-foot-high roof would eventually be torn off to make way for the upward expansion up to 58 feet, they needed to control the environment for the sake of the company’s existing uses.

The sequencing of the construction project is a key point for Amway, Ziegler said, because the company has to wind down production in California and bring Ada up to speed almost simultaneously, as well as work with the supply chain to ensure a seamless transition. That means construction deadlines must be met for the project to succeed.

“This is a big one,” Ziegler said of the project. “In general, the strategic redesign of our manufacturing operation is huge. It’s significant for strategic production worldwide.”

To remove as many surprises as possible, the project team enlisted architectural firm Fishbeck, Thompson, Carr & Huber Inc., which developed renderings for the building using a Building Information Modeling (BIM) system.

“It’s all in 3-D, so we could lay out the tower and make sure all the equipment will fit with the structure and mechanicals. We wanted to make sure everything would fit in the structure, and that saves time and money,” said Greg Lentz, intern architect at FTC&H. “All the teams had input into the model so there were no surprises.”

Wickstrom said the design of the facility focused on workflow and access to the various pieces of equipment. Rather than just build a space, the team wanted to ensure the use of the space also fit. Brianne Fisher, senior project manager at Erhardt Construction, said the design also had to take into account various uses outside of the space as well. For example, several high-pressure lines running through the space had to be accommodated because they supply other operations on campus. Disrupting them was not an option, she said.

Because the new production involves food, the space will feature “clean room type technology” and must be easily cleaned and controllable so no dust or contamination can enter the product. Stainless steel and epoxy finishes will be the norm. But the space must also adapt to Amway’s needs. Wickstrom said the team selected a modular wall that can be easily changed without disrupting production.

As of press time, Erhardt was just wrapping up the deep foundation work and planned to start on the structural steel for the vertical expansion before spring.

“Everyone has to come in at the right time,” Khattak said. “It’s an effort that (means) everyone needs to be communicating the clarity of what needs to be done and where. So far, so good.”

In part, that communication is fed by the BIM system, as well as Erhardt’s online document management program, which allows project team members to access and work from the same documents no matter their location.

“What’s unique about this project, from a work system standpoint, is that we are truly going to use the best-in-class practices in terms of manufacturing,” Khattak said. “We believe best in class can give us a competitive advantage. …We can put in all the right systems and carry them to other operations.”