Brian Perry Civil's work on the massive new Winstone Wallboards facility in Tauranga is complete, 18 months after breaking ground.

The new facilities include a 67,000m2 GIB® plasterboard manufacturing plant and 50,000 tonne gypsum storage shed.

Our team provided specialist input for the concrete foundations, detailed excavation, piling and precast concrete installation. 

We delivered:

11,000m³ of concrete for foundations and ground beams, 1,380t of reinforcing steel, Over 5km of concrete ground beams, 520 CFA piles for ground improvement, Installation of 359 no. precast panels, ranging from 8 to 14 tonnes and Construction of a 24m-long weighbridge.

Project Manager Ravi Ramlagan says the crew “earned respect from every contractor on site, including the head contractor and client”.

Some impressive planning and effort went into ensuring the smooth delivery of the works.

A 130m³ pour for the western conveyor foundations was “executed perfectly, with detailed planning,” says Project Manager Ravi Ramlagan.

Another highlight was the technical lift of a 34tonne precast concrete pit in the Mill & Formulation foundation. This was 3D modelled prior to placement due to the high density of steel bars placed within 5mm accuracy.

The 480m3 Rock Silo slab pour required two crews, a nightshift and a dayshift, working on a Saturday. Ravi said. “We started the nightshift at midnight and completed the concrete placement in record time, then the dayshift crew achieved the required finish on the sloping slab. This was challenging due to the tight 2mm tolerance of the bolt clusters and with close to 90tonnes of reinforcing steel in this 1.5m thick slab.”

Smart use of laser cutting templates helped the team deliver a challenging two-piece concrete “kettle”. The kettle’s circular L-shaped top hat needed to be installed to a very tight tolerance of 5mm so critical equipment could be installed above. Traditional insitu construction could not have achieved the accuracy needed with the available timeframe on the critical path, so Construction Manager Mark Seymour and his team used CAD to design and laser-cut steel templates to achieve the dimensions needed.  

The templates ensured the internal ducting and inserts were located in tolerance and dimensional accuracy achieved when the 17-tonne top hat was flipped and placed. All 48 tie bars fitted within their respective duct or insert, and the top hat was located within 2mm of its designed position.