Hanson’s New Automated Concrete Pipe Plant Site Set for Winter Haven, Florida

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Hanson Pipe & Precast, Incorporated (NYSE:HAN) (Dallas, Texas), a subsidiary of Hanson plc (LSE:3351608) (London, England), performed the groundbreaking ceremony for one of the largest automated concrete pipe manufacturing plants in the United States on July 27, 2006. Scheduled for a fall 2007 start-up with an employment count of about 50 workers, the 171,000 square-foot facility will reside on 91 acres of land along Lucerne Park Road and Lucerne Loop Road in Winter Haven, Florida. The new automated plant will manufacture concrete pipe and precast concrete products, such as manholes and sewer structures, for locales within 150 miles of the Orlando and Tampa/Saint Petersburg areas.

Hanson selected R. C. Stevens Construction Company, based in Orlando, Florida, as the general contractor for this estimated $45 million plant.

Equipped with the technology of the Hawkeye Group, a Mediapolis, Iowa-based company, production at the new automated Winter Haven plant will be handled robotically in a continuous process flow. The facility will feature the latest technology in quality control and testing and a monitoring system that will control the noise emissions making the plant environmentally sound. The machinery will be operated by employees through touch-screen controls on two production lines, and will be able to produce and cure a concrete pipe in eight hours as opposed to the 24 hours it now takes at its sister plant in Kissimmee. As a result, the Winter Haven plant will be able to produce more than 20,000 tons of products per year, which is four times as much as in Kissimmee.

Hanson plc manufactures building materials and equipment. It is the largest producer of aggregates and concrete pipe and precast concrete products in the world, and the third largest producer of ready-mixed concrete. The company also produces asphalt, clay bricks, and roofing tiles. It extracts its raw materials from more than 450 quarries worldwide. Hanson runs operations in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, and Asia with a total of 27,000 employees.

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