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O-I Glass Container Manufacturing Plant
When O-I decided to undertake construction of the first glass manufacturing plant to be built in the United States in more than two decades, it turned first to The Lathrop Company, the venerable construction firm – and Lathrop promptly selected Kahn as its partner. According to Lathrop Vice President Allen Pilz, PE, it chose Kahn because of its “comfort with the Kahn team, and its passion for making this project a great success.” Once O-I presented and explained its time-tested manufacturing process, the Kahn- Lathrop team’s objective was clear: design and build a structure that would not only efficiently house O-I’s material mixing, melting, forming, cooling, and shipping operations but would also effectively accommodate its quality control, personnel, and other administrative functions. more...
The team’s greatest challenge: examining and presenting building options after it learned an underground aquifer was located about 20 feet below grade. High ground water on site creates the potential for basement buoyancy, and while Kahn could have readily created a buoyancy-resistant design – which it has done on many occasions – it would also have caused fairly severe cost and scheduling overruns. So Kahn and Lathrop presented O-I with a different option: a $1 million slurry wall that isolated deep excavations – a proactive Kahn-Lathrop solution that O-I gratefully estimates saved it three to four times what it spent. Kahn provided architectural engineering and process engineering support services for this $120 million facility, which went into full production in September 2005 and is now among the highest producing glass container manufacturing plants in the country, generating more than one billion bottles per year.
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