Shortly after committing to broaden its Gifford-Hill manufactured-concrete franchise in 1997 (note page 37), Hanson Building Materials America tapped Richmond, Va.-based Concrete Pipe & Products, one of the drainage market's three remaining large private players. Hanson Pipe & Products Inc., as the top U.S. operator in manufactured concrete is now known, continues to back its portfolio by reinvesting in former Gifford-Hill and CP&P plants, as well as other properties acquired over the past eight years.

CP&P's Ashland, Va., plant, just outside Richmond, is the latest example of Hanson retooling around a low-cost, regional production model. Built in 1970, the operation until recently was running original twin packerhead machines. To rationalize output of small and medium bore pipe in Virginia, the company bought new machinery, with 12- to 60-in. diameter product capability, and expanded the plant's moving floor-served kiln. Cage fabrication has switched from manual press wire rolling to semi-automated, extruder type machinery.

After a ramp up that began in November 2004, Ashland is poised to handle much of the 15- to 48-in. diameter product Hanson is shipping in Virginia. This enables sister Richmond and Chesapeake plants to dedicate more capacity to products like elliptical pipe, box culverts, manholes, and higher value, custom precast. Ashland can also back up a more distant Virginia satellite, in Roanoke, and split service to northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., with a new plant Hanson is building in Jessup, Md.

Company officials anticipate that vastly improved equipment and moderate market gains in Richmond and much of Virginia will propel Ashland's 2005 shipments about 30 percent ahead of last year, to upwards of 60,000 tons.