Pet Nutrition Manufacturing Facility

The Austin Company provided the design, engineering and construction services for Hill’s Pet Nutrition, a major pet nutrition manufacturing center, in Emporia, Kansas. The building envelope for this facility covers nearly 600,000 SF, and includes a milling operation, raw materials warehouse, upper and lower production areas, office space, packaging area, mixing center, and a finished goods warehouse.

In addition to the design-build services for the project, Austin’s engagement also included the design, engineering, purchasing, installation, integration and commissioning responsibilities for all the required process equipment. Austin used BIM modeling for this project, facilitating coordination between the building trades during the construction installation.

To ensure the highest level of employee safety and health during the building of the facility, a site partnership was developed between Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Austin and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) area office in Wichita.

The goal of this partnership, which also included the Kansas Department of Labor-Division of Industrial Safety and Health and Kajima Building and Design Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia, was to create and maintain a worksite free of worker injuries and illnesses that could result in lost workdays.