Facility Engineering Services, PA is a design specialist providing quality and cost effective consulting engineering and related professional services to owners, manufacturers, and contractors with a focus on industrial processing facilities for the Biofuels, Food Process, Bulk Storage, and Agricultural Processing Industries. As part of our comprehensive services, we offer a complete range of planning, plant layout, structural, and buildings system engineering along with process and mechanical engineering for our clients.
We pride ourselves on our ability to understand our client’s needs. Many of our team members have worked in the industries that they now serve. Our service begins with an understanding of the needs of the client and the process they perform at their facility. Once we understand your needs, we work to develop a solution that fits your needs.
The difference between Facility Engineering Services, PA and other engineering firms is that we take a comprehensive approach to our engineering designs to better serve our clients. The “comprehensive” approach involves integrating traditional engineering disciplines to focus on how the facility and/or process works as a whole. We believe that by utilizing this approach that we can achieve better results for our clients. Our interactive process and overall teaming approach includes all parties involved in project development.
Comprehensive Engineering Advantage
Today’s bioprocessing, biofuels and food facilities are complex entities requiring a new integrated approach to engineering design. As technology improves, the importance of facility and processes integration will grow. Infrastructure for growth, storage, handling and processing of agricultural commodities is comprised of many complex systems including: unique facilities for growth of plants and animals, equipment for loading and unloading from truck, rail, and ship; storage structures of all types and sizes; sophisticated handling and processing equipment; and special facilities for housing/protection of this equipment. These systems must be designed, built and operated by engineers who are familiar with the unique codes, regulations and design specifications applicable to agri-industrial facilities. For example, in addition to the safety and building codes to which all industries must abide, agricultural and agri-industries in the United States are subject to numerous USDA and FDA regulations under Titles 9 and 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations. These regulations help ensure a safe food supply through control of indoor air quality, sanitation practices, waste management and bio-security
For many commercial and industrial facilities, the physical plant (i.e., buildings and their mechanical systems) can be designed and built without knowledge of the manufacturing process/business that will operate within the facility. This is seldom true with an agricultural or agri-industrial facility. In virtually all cases, the building shell(s) and associated HVAC systems are just as integral to the processing system as the processing equipment. This is illustrated with the following points.
HVAC equipment (e.g., boilers, chillers, air handlers, refrigeration) capacity must generally be increased significantly to handle demands of agri-industrial processing equipment.
Processing equipment sanitation and maintenance requirements dictate how the entire facility is plumbed, floors are sloped and finished, equipment is structurally supported, ceilings and walls are constructed and finished, lighting is provided, etc.
Some agricultural commodities can be quite combustible, and storage and handling of combustible hazards dictate facility layout, fire resistive ratings of materials, building egress locations, fire extinguishing and suppression system design.
Physical properties and quantities of raw materials, materials in-process, and processed materials dictate the structural design of the numerous silos, bins, tanks, etc. associated with the typical agri-industrial facility.
Design of agricultural commodities storage is frequently dictated by special atmospheric storage requirements (e.g., temperature, humidity, CO2, etc.) as all organic substances are subject to degradation by organisms both large and small.
The myriad of materials handling equipment determine the size and location of openings, as well as how the facility is structurally framed to handle loads imposed by the handling equipment.
Size and shape of large processing equipment dictates building shell geometry as well as how the shell of the building is framed for equipment access, removal and/or replacement.
The tight integration of physical plant design with processing equipment/system design significantly affects working relationships between various design engineers and their companies. This integration will result in more economical and efficient facilities. This is truly a systems style agricultural engineering approach.
In the future, facilities will become even larger and more complex. These facilities will also be able to process multiple feedstock streams into the most sustainable and economical outputs. For example, a food processing plant will not only make food, but consumer and energy products based on quality, quantity, and need. This increased complexity and interaction will require engineers with a unique understanding of all aspects of facility design, planning and operation. This will truly require an agricultural engineering systems style approach.
