Asset International Ltd, the leading manufacturer of Weholite HDPE plastic sustainable drainage and water management products, has supplied a network of surface water drainage pipework to facilitate the extension of the Airbus factory at Broughton, Flintshire.
Airbus currently employs around 6,000 people at its Broughton factory, where the wings for the entire family of Airbus commercial aircraft are made and with a growing order book, production is set to increase.
Airbus initiated an extension of the current factory facilities in order to manage the increased traffic from the vast Beluga cargo planes, which fly in wing panels from other facilities in Europe and the finished wings of the A320, A330 and A350 aircraft to the final assembly lines in Toulouse and Hamburg.
In order to facilitate the extension Airbus Broughton appointed Interserve as the main contractor to undertake the required works.
The new extension comes just two years after the £400 million Airbus Broughton North Factory site was opened by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2011. It is now one of the largest manufacturing facilities in the UK and as a result of its size and the number of people located at one site, comes with its own set of unique requirements.
In collaboration with Interserve and Tier Consult, Asset International delivered a complete network of surface water drainage pipework, utilising Weholite’s 1,400mm diameter HDPE pipe, to serve the extended site, including all of the associated manholes and connections. In all over 800 metres of Weholite pipe work has been installed at the new site.
The project also needed to take into account an issue with the existing onsite services which resulted in a redesign of the original plans to bypass certain elements of the Airbus site.
Another specific requirement of the Airbus Broughton site was that all work conducted to the factory extension was carried out in an environmentally friendly manner. Airbus in the UK is committed to reducing CO2 emissions and energy consumption, and the North Factory, which makes the wings for the new A350XWB aircraft, has earned a BREEAM Excellence rating, an achievement made all the more impressive considering the sheer scale of the site – over a million cubic metres.
This eco friendly outlook was a direct fit with that of Asset International, who have been awarded certification to the world class ISO accredited CEMARS standard by the Achilles carbon reduction programme. An achievement characterized by the recent unveiling of one of Wales’ largest rooftop solar panel systems at their Newport factory.
Darren Williams, Technical Sales Engineer at Asset International, said: “Asset has previously worked on earlier extensions at the Broughton factory and so we are extremely familiar with both the site and the unique requirements and challenges that it brings.
“A project of this scale, working alongside one of the biggest manufacturing brands in Europe was always going to be a big undertaking. However, devising large scale water management solutions is at the very heart of what we do and despite the inevitable tests involved when working on a site of this scale, I am extremely pleased with how operations are currently progressing.”
Vernon Ellis, Project Manager for Interserve, who is in charge of the Airbus Broughton extension, commented: “We have worked with Asset International on previous projects and so they were the obvious choice when it came to planning the extension of the Broughton Airbus site. We have a great relationship with the team who understand the complex nature of our requirements and the strict onsite security.”