SAIC Delivers Turnkey Sustainable Solutions for Boral Bricks’ Manufacturing Plant

SAIC worked with Boral Bricks, the largest brick maker in the United States, to build a state-of-the-art brick plant that is zero-waste and derives most of its energy from landfill gas.

Overview

Boral Bricks, the largest manufacturer and distributor of clay brick in the United States, hired SAIC to design and build a new brick manufacturing facility—the largest of its kind in the U.S. SAIC understood the customer's requirements from the start and was involved in every step from site selection to construction in order to deliver a project that filled the customer's needs as quickly, economically, and sustainably as possible.

"Throughout our dealings with SAIC, we’ve been pleased with the expertise and the knowledge of the people they have been able to put on a project.”
- Terry Schimmel, Boral Bricks

During site selection, SAIC identified clay deposits and overlaid this information with maps of nearby landfills. The result was a site that provided low-cost, nearby materials and renewable energy options. An abandoned coal-mining site with nearly 100 acres of discarded clay provided a readily accessible material source, and methane from a nearby landfill, which had previously been closed, capped, and the generated methane flared off, became an energy source for the plant. Transportation costs and fuel consumption were reduced because the materials were nearby and the finished bricks are close to key housing markets. In addition, the facility produces zero operation waste, features premium efficiency motors, and uses sensors and timers to minimize lighting.

In the end, the 295,000-square-foot Terre Haute, Ind., facility opened as the largest brick plant in the country, producing a variety of brick sizes and colors with the capacity to produce 120 million standard brick equivalents annually. The facilities consist of several different functional areas:

  • Clay preparation process with storage and dust collection
  • Brick-making process
  • Robotic setting equipment
  • Automated car movement system
  • Holding room
  • Dryers
  • Kiln
  • Robotic unloading and packaging
  • Administrative, maintenance, and warehouse areas

The new facility increased Boral Brick's overall clay brick manufacturing capacity in the U.S. by around 7 percent and allowed the company to better serve its upper Midwest markets. Since the completion of this project, SAIC was awarded a new prime contract by Boral Composites Inc. to design and build a composite building material manufacturing facility. The contract is valued at more than $11 million, and the project is scheduled for completion in June 2011.

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Project Details

    • Location: Terre Haute, Ind.Google Earth
    • Status: Complete
    • Project Details:
      • Produces 120 million bricks per year or enough for 8,300 brick houses
      • Manufactures four different sizes of bricks in 12 different colors
      • Facility produces zero operation waste

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Industry Rankings/Awards

  • 2009 National Excellence Award from Design-Build Institute of America

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