Proficiency in finance math should be a given with a company whose investments in U.S. construction materials and products businesses since 1990 have exceeded $1.5 billion. Through a recent $4 million greenfield development near Nashville, however, Atlanta-based Oldcastle Inc. seeks to make the grade in synergy math, where the whole is considerably greater than the sum of its parts and their cost of capital.

The company's Oldcastle Precast Group unit has commissioned a 50,000-sq.-ft. office building and production plant in Lebanon, Tenn. It is the first built specifically for two of the lines Oldcastle Precast does best: 1) underground electrical and telecommunications vaults and 2) modular building cells or units for corrections, education and lodging markets. The lines reflect specialties Oldcastle Precast has gained through the acquisition of Washington-based Utility Vault (1981) and Pennsylvania-based Rotondo Group (1994). Management from those and other sister group companies offered floorplan and other design input for the Lebanon plant.

"Oldcastle management requires three things to invest in a plant: market, facility and people," says Lebanon General Manager Randy Finch. "Tennessee is strong and this location can serve other vault and modular unit markets. The location makes us more competitive for the kind of structures in which we specialize."

To complement production of vaults, cells and other specialty structures, Oldcastle Precast has commenced with construction of an adjacent 14,000-sq.-ft. concrete pipe line at the site. The company has elected to offer pipe as a compliment to concrete manholes and drainage structures currently produced at a nearby sister plant, Cloud Concrete Products, in LaVergne, Tenn. Scheduled for start up this June, the plant will have a Hawkeye Enhanced Pipe Plus Machine and produce 15-in. to 72-in.-diameter round and selected elliptical pipe.

On the people side, Finch has staffed Lebanon's vault and cell line with an initial crew of 20. Recruitment efforts to staff the pipe operation are under way.

Convergence As a strategic area for production and transportation, Nashville holds its own: It was good enough for General Motors' Saturn venture and has the convergence of continuous routes linking Lake Michigan with the Gulf of Mexico (Interstate 65), and the North Carolina coast with California's Mojave Desert (Interstate 40). Yet Randy Finch and Oldcastle Precast management recognized during plant design that competition for good labor would be high. To add comfort at Lebanon, they included fans and radiant heating in the production area, plus large break and locker rooms. Finch notes that against tight labor conditions, quality job candidates not fully sold on a concrete plant environment might need to look no further for an interview than an adjacent site - a 10,000-employee Dell Computer assembly operation.

At optimal capacity, Oldcastle Precast/Lebanon could have 70 to 120 on staff for both the precast and pipe plants. For now, Finch is training the production crew in concrete work and team functioning. The pace should be suffic ient to help him meet a 40,000-ton shipment goal this year. A big part of the Year 2000 volume will be logged with fabrication and delivery of nearly 600 modular pre-finished cell units for a Wisconsin state facility near Green Bay and a Federal Bureau of Prisons job in Kentucky.

While the corrections contracts have proved timely for Lebanon start up and staff development, Finch has been promoting vault production capabilities and securing qualification among electrical and telecommunications utility prospects. He has also completed a preliminary evaluation for Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute Plant Certification, a final, unannounced audit for which should occur this spring.