Confidential Client
Midwest USA
Manufacturing
Nexus’s Project Services Team provides project controls, scheduling, and estimating expertise for indefinitely recyclable beverage can manufacturer.
Overview
The client is a leading manufacturer of aluminum beverage cans, producing infinitely recyclable packaging solutions for a wide range of consumer products, including sparkling water, soft drinks, teas, and alcoholic beverages. As demand for sustainable packaging continued to grow, the client sought to rapidly expand its production capacity to better serve customers and strengthen its position within the marketplace. The beverage can industry plays a critical role in supporting consumer packaged goods manufacturers while advancing sustainability goals through recyclable packaging materials.
To support its growth objectives, the client acquired an existing manufacturing facility in Ohio with plans to renovate and modify the site for aluminum can production. While the acquisition provided a faster path to market than developing a greenfield facility, significant planning, coordination, and execution efforts were required to transform the facility into an operational manufacturing plant capable of meeting production demands.
Nexus Engineering Group was engaged to provide project controls, scheduling, estimating, and procurement support services to help guide the project from early planning through execution. The primary goal was to establish a comprehensive project management control system that aligned engineering, procurement, and construction activities while supporting aggressive production startup objectives. Through disciplined schedule planning, cost forecasting, and project controls, Nexus helped position the project for successful execution while maintaining focus on budget and schedule performance.
Challenge
The project presented several unique challenges that required extensive coordination, proactive planning, and detailed project control oversight.
Aggressive Timeline and Rapid Capacity Expansion
The client faced rapidly increasing market demand and needed to bring new production capacity online as quickly as possible. Renovating an existing facility offered significant schedule advantages, but it also compressed planning and execution timelines. The project team needed to develop a detailed and realistic project control schedule that could coordinate engineering deliverables, procurement activities, contractor work, and commissioning efforts while supporting an accelerated startup date.
Complex Brownfield Retrofit
Acquiring an existing facility provided the client with an accelerated path to increased production capacity, but introduced significant brownfield execution challenges. The existing building required extensive retrofit and modification to accommodate new production equipment, utilities, infrastructure, and supporting systems. Rather than designing around a purpose-built greenfield facility, the project team had to continuously integrate new installations with existing conditions while managing physical constraints, interfaces, sequencing requirements, and emerging field conditions.
Maintaining Cost and Schedule Visibility
Given the scale of industrial renovations and the urgency of the project, the client required clear visibility into progress, budget performance, and potential risks. Effective planning and project control processes were critical to ensuring informed decision-making throughout execution. Contractor performance, schedule updates, procurement activities, and construction progress all needed to be evaluated against project objectives to prevent delays and maintain budget accuracy.
Multi-Contractor Execution and Interface Management
The project was executed through multiple engineering, equipment, and construction contractors working concurrently within the same facility. Each organization brought its own scope, priorities, schedule, sequencing assumptions, and dependencies. With significant interfaces between contractors, a delay or change within one workstream could quickly affect several others.
The client needed more than individual contractor schedules. It needed a single integrated view of the project that identified interfaces, dependencies, constraints, and critical milestones across the entire execution program.
Solution
Nexus addressed these challenges by implementing a comprehensive project controls strategy centered on integrated scheduling, performance tracking, and cost management.
The engagement began with a project health check to assess the facility, establish project requirements, and identify the key milestones necessary for achieving operational readiness. Based on this assessment, Nexus developed a master controls schedule that incorporated engineering activities, procurement milestones, contractor deliverables, and construction execution into a single, integrated framework. This centralized approach created a reliable foundation for schedule management and project oversight.
Nexus assumed the lead role in developing and maintaining a detailed Master Controls Schedule (MCS) that integrated the activities of the client, engineering teams, equipment suppliers, and multiple construction contractors into a single project execution framework.
The MCS established the key interfaces and dependencies between engineering, procurement, construction, equipment installation, commissioning, and startup. Nexus actively controlled the schedule throughout execution, incorporating contractor updates, evaluating schedule impacts, identifying emerging constraints, and providing project leadership with a consolidated view of overall project performance.
Rather than relying on individual contractor schedules to determine project status, the client had an integrated management tool that established accountability across the project and supported proactive decision-making.
Throughout execution, Nexus provided ongoing schedule coordination, contractor update management, and weekly performance reporting. By continuously monitoring progress and maintaining alignment between stakeholders, the team helped identify emerging risks early and supported timely decision-making to keep the project moving forward. The master schedule served as a critical management tool, enabling project leadership to evaluate progress against key milestones and maintain accountability across all project participants.
Nexus also leveraged the schedule and project controls framework to support budget validation and cost forecasting. The integrated approach connected schedule performance with budget expectations, providing valuable insights into contractor productivity, project expenditures, and overall project health. By combining cost budget project management practices with robust scheduling methodologies, Nexus helped the client maintain confidence in both schedule and financial outcomes during a complex industrial renovation project.
Through disciplined project controls, proactive schedule management, and data-driven decision-making, Nexus helped the client successfully advance facility renovations while maintaining focus on schedule performance, budget accountability, and operational readiness. The result was a streamlined path toward increased manufacturing capacity that supported the client's growth objectives and strengthened its ability to meet rising demand in the packaging market.
Services
- Project Controls
- Schedule Management
- Schedule Planning
- Master Controls Schedule Development
- Cost Estimating
- Cost Forecasting and Budget Validation
- Procurement Support
- Weekly Performance Reporting
- Contractor Coordination
- Planning and Project Control
Project Director
