Although Oldcastle Architectural is among the few concrete masonry players with scale to justify adopting a prototype model for future landscape unit plants, the company's newest greenfield property, in Stockton, Calif., rose from a blank drawing board.

“When the time came to move into northern California, we invited vendors to design equipment around our five fundamentals of safety, quality, productivity, preventive maintenance and housekeeping,” explains Oldcastle Stockton Vice President and General Manager Randy Finch. “These points had to be covered even while we were trying to build a plant critical to covering shipments for our largest account.”

Beginning with fundamental number one, safety, extra attention at the plant is paid to restricting product machinery and handling equipment access. Locked gates enclose much of the perimeter areas of stations along the wet and dry sides. The gates can only be unlocked with special keys, developed by the United Kingdom parent company of Kentucky-based Castell Interlocks Inc. The Castell Personal Access keys are placed at centralized operator panels. If they are removed from the panels — a condition of unlocking nearby access gates — the equipment is automatically disabled in much the same manner as electric eye-type devices common in concrete masonry production. The new plant has a limited number of such devices, as locked gates are the primary barriers.

Consistent product quality at Oldcastle Stockton is achieved through advanced monitoring and batching equipment and a high level of automation. A quality station integral with the wet side conveyor but placed outside of the normal flow provides additional safety and convenience for the operator. A Rekers Model KRS4 block machine is housed in an acoustic enclosure that allows plant operators to view molding and, within steps, to observe pallets en route to the elevator. Computer screens surrounding the main station, and placed at or above shoulder level, enable operators to monitor moisture content readings from aggregate bin and mixer probes; batching and mixing sequences; and, granulated color pigment dosing. Less than 50 feet from the operator station is a small quality-control lab with equipment to test materials and finished product.

Oldcastle Stockton is set up to run with a three-man crew under roof, plus a crew for tumbling. Beyond output typical of a high-capital, automated concrete masonry line, the plant has potential for greater productivity due to a tight footprint and improved worker comfort. The floorplan places nearly all production and handling in operator view from the main station, at the base of which is a thick rubber mat similar to ones found in food service or other work areas where employees spend most of a shift on their feet. Machinery noise and vibration above what the enclosure curtails are further muted by an extra-thick foundation built to suit codes written for a high seismic zone such as northern California.

More noise and vibration abatement is achieved with Peri Pave production boards consisting of birch plywood sandwiched between recycled-plastic laminate. Developed by a German company best known for engineered concrete formwork, the boards have recently been introduced to the North American market. The Stockton plant is Oldcastle Architectural's first use of Peri Pave.

The housekeeping strategy at Oldcastle Stockton is based on furnishings and philosophy. Steel 55-gal. drum waste containers, painted a true orange, are placed throughout, while slightly higher than normal product conveyors contribute to ease of sweeping that is part of a weekly plant-cleaning regimen. Above all, tidiness at the facility is a reflection of a hands-on general manager who is not afraid to pick up a broom and set an example.

PLANT DEVELOPMENT

In a pattern similar to its sister Precast business, Atlanta-based Oldcastle Architectural has increasingly staked expansion on greenfield development or full-scale plant rebuilding at existing sites. The strategy reflects a need to mobilize landscape unit capacity to serve the increasing store network of its largest account, a home improvement retailer, while growing a premium, dealer-driven line of paving and segmental retaining wall units under the Belgard brand.

A projected population upwards of 10 million over the next decade places northern California high on target development areas for suppliers and retailers. Oldcastle Stockton provides much needed backup to the company's plant in Fontana, outside Los Angeles. Built in 1999 on a 10-acre site that Utility Vault, Oldcastle Precast's charter business, had outgrown, the Fontana plant was handling production for southern California home center stores, plus more than 25 additional outlets now served by Stockton.

The strain on Fontana capacity, coupled with the freight costs in hauling landscape unit loads more than 350 miles north, added priority to the northern California satellite development. To expedite the project, Oldcastle Architectural tapped Oldcastle Precast's Randy Finch, who after a long tenure with Utility Vault in Washington State, had been charged with pipe and precast plant overhauls in North Carolina. Most recently he oversaw the two-phase construction of a vault, modular precast and pipe plant in Lebanon, Tenn., near Nashville (Concrete Products, April 2000). Operating under the Cloud Concrete banner, that property was one of the first greenfield operations Oldcastle Precast had built in its 20 years of existence.

Nashville-based Bacar Constructors Inc., which handled the Tennessee plant, followed Finch to California to tackle the Stockton contract. A January 2005 target start was threatened by an extremely wet winter. Weeks of rain hampered but did not halt crews from Bacar's site subcontractor, Granite Construction, whose foreman told Finch: “You're the only one doing any work now.”

Inclement weather could not dampen the long-term prospects of a premium plot. “Land prices and plant permitting favored our looking inland from the San Francisco Bay Area,” explains Finch. “After finding good sources for aggregate in [nearby] Vernalis, we looked for a site with rail access to give us the option of a bagging plant down the road.” The target parcel offered more than he bargained for: 17 acres at the end of an established (i.e., full utilities, infrastructure) industrial park street, bordered by a rail spur on two sides. Among the property's few limitations are a 45-ft. building height restriction, owing to the Stockton Metro Airport located about a half mile to the east. The plant lies between California Highway 99, the state road linking Los Angeles and the capital, Sacramento, and Interstate 5, California's main north-south thoroughfare.

Oldcastle Stockton is positioned to supply retail and dealer grade landscape units across northern California, southern Oregon and the Reno and Lake Tahoe, Nevada, markets. The site and initial plant enclosure will easily accommodate expansion of concrete masonry offerings or the bagging line.