The Ford Rouge Center: A Lean and Sustainable Model for the 21st Century

[ By William A. Kroczolowski & Zachary A. Smith ]

Integrating sustainable or "green" building practices into the construction of manufacturing facilities is growing throughout the world. Research and practical applications have proved that little or no increase in upfront investment can yield significant life cycle savings.

But "green" building was a relatively new concept in 1998, when architects and engineers from ARCADIS were asked to look at the possibilities for redeveloping the Ford Rouge Complex, an icon of America's 20th century Industrial Revolution that was showing its age. The 85-year-old facility, where Henry Ford had developed integrated vertical manufacturing techniques, was deficient in the type of lean, flexible and sustainable space needed to remain competitive in the 21st century automobile manufacturing world.

Ford Motor Company made a bold decision in choosing to redevelop the aging facilities, rather than turning its back on the site. By developing a "lean, green" manufacturing facility capable of assembling quality Ford truck products, yet flexible enough to quickly change the product mix to satisfy market demands, Ford would reap long-term benefits and gain recognition as a leader in 21st century sustainable manufacturing.

The sustainability mandate was clear and ARCADIS was selected as Architect-Engineer of Record. A phased approach was suggested, both to achieve the owner's initial goals and to establish a plan for future site development. The result was a 20-year master plan that defines expected results of future site development. It also allows Ford to prioritize the selection of site components to be developed in accordance with its business plans.

Design and Construction Challenges: Thinking in Building Volume

Redevelopment of the Ford Rouge Center in Michigan includes the world's largest "green roof" over the plant, and "green screens" mounted on the exterior wall surfaces. Site organization encourages maximum potential for landscape development.

Design and construction would need to occur while the Dearborn Truck Plant (DTP) maintained its production of Ford Mustangs - Ford Rouge operations were also to remain uninterrupted. Steelmaking operations located on a portion of the original 1,100-acre Rouge Complex would also need to continue during design and construction. Scheduled launch of the first of three new vehicles to be manufactured at the site was established as August of 2002. "Job No. 1" dates for the second and third products were scheduled for January 2003 and August 2003. At the same time that the new vehicles were to be assembled, the "balance out" date (date the last vehicle of a product line would be produced at that location) for the Mustang was set for June 2003.

This aggressive schedule meant Ford would be making car and truck products in two separate buildings on site, at the same time. The impacts of accomplishing the building footprint and logistics requirements were significant, given that tool installation and tryout would require one year, and construction time needed to erect over two million square feet of buildings and 65 acres of site modifications would take another 18 months.

The first increment of design and construction was the 1.75-million-square-foot truck plant. Included were one million square feet of assembly space and a 750,000-square-foot body shop. An existing paint shop would be reused to complete the required function of the assembly operations. The initial building design would provide generic spaces with sufficient flexibility to allow adjustment as space criteria were defined. This approach required the design team to think in building volume, not just plan, from the outset.

In May 1999, a work plan was established that allowed for effective participation by all stakeholders, including owner, architect/engineer, sustainability consultant, landscape consultant and program/construction manager. All agreed to operate under the day-to-day administrative direction of the program manager, whose knowledge of costs, timing and logistics enabled the team to continually advise stakeholders about decisions to be made, meetings to be held, packages of information to be readied, expenditures to be authorized and construction operations to be energized.

Retrofitting Historic Elements

• The site entry and road system allow for just-in-time delivery of modular assemblies.
• Building entries, clear heights and plan configuration allow for incorporation of supplier modular assemblies, in many cases via overhead conveyor.
• Dock arrangement allows for rear unload as well as side unload operations.
• Factory floor, including 100 foot by 50 foot bay sizing, allows incorporation of process lines and flexible equipment arrangement with the potential for manufacturing a wide range of vehicle types.
• Site organization encourages minimal potential for storage and dunnage and maximum potential for landscape development.
• By separating functional areas (for employee team planning, dining, visitor tours, administrative, gathering and convenience) from the factory floor, safety is improved and processes below can be viewed from above.
• Overhead utility distribution allows for ease in testing and inspection of systems.
• The world's largest "green roof" over the plant, and "green screens" mounted on the exterior wall surfaces, provide a measure of cooling comfort for employees, while absorbing and slowing the discharge of stormwater to the nearby Rouge River.

Facility design also considered how certain historic elements of the site could be retrofitted and adapted to achieve program requirements. An empty glass manufacturing plant, designed by Albert Kahn and constructed in 1924, subsequently expanded to over one million square feet, stood in the way of the proposed new DTPÿbody shop operations. Rather than demolishing the entire historic structure, Ford chose to retain a portion of the building and restore it to its original appearance, integrating the old and new facilities in a way that respected the past.

Although program options for the historic structure considered everything from training to a visitors' center,ÿa low-volume vehicle assembly operation and a greenhouse/event center, a new 60,000-square-foot DTP training center was planned to facilitate training in the new Ford production systems.ÿ The south facade was brought back to appear exactly as it did in 1924, except that the four 13-foot diameter smokestacks were symbolically replaced by four 13-foot planters in the exact location as the stacks.

The brick color, window sash and door colors as well as siding colors were faithfully copied. Looking through the "first curtain-wall in the U.S.," employees and trainees will be able to observe robotic training where once four giant furnaces made molten glass. Seen in the context of new lean manufacturing facilities, the historic glass plant provides an important reference to the dramatic change that has taken place at the Rouge Center. With its innovative stormwater management system (see sidebar), sustainable site development features, the largest green roof in the world and flexible building design, the Ford Rouge Redevelopment Project has proven to be a model of sustainable industrial development. In fact, the Ford Rouge Center has been recognized with numerous awards including the 2003 AIA Michigan Honor Award for Sustainable Design, 2004 NOVA Award and 2004 Green Roofs Award of Excellence.

William Kroczolowski, AIA, is the director of sustainable design, managing ARCADIS' sustainable buildings practice in Southfield, Michigan. Zachary Smith, P.E., is an executive vice president. He is located in the company's Highlands Ranch, Colorado, headquarters.

For more information

Industry Resources: Sustainable Design
www.naiop.org/industryresources/sustaindesign.cfm

Real Estate Briefing: Real Estate Briefing: Developing Green To order, contact NAIOP's Publications Department at (800) 666-6780.

Sustainability in Watershed Management With sustainability as its primary goal, the Ford Rouge team needed to find a way for manufacturing to support the environment. Throughout the center's redevelopment, watershed management emerged as a major focus for application of sustainable practices in the facility renovation. After conventional collection and treatment, stormwater from the Rouge Center drains into the Rouge River. In late 2001, ARCADIS contacted local community representatives and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, to gain an appreciation of the extent of the Rouge River basin and to plan in concert with the objectives of governmental authorities responsible for the future health of that basin. Through coordination with these entities, the team established best management practices and likely future water quality standards that would serve as a sustainability benchmark throughout development of the center. A collaborative Stormwater System Design Team was instituted, including representatives from Michigan State University's Department of Horticulture (for choice of appropriate plant material), Ford Land (development arm of Ford Motor Company), Ford Environmental Quality Office, ARCADIS (Architect-Engineer of Record), William McDonough + Partners (sustainability consultant to Ford Motor Company), HarleyEllis (landscape master planner) and Walbridge Aldinger (program manager). The team's first challenge was to establish a definition of sustainable stormwater management, and to translate that broad concept into specific design objectives consistent with both the sustainability theme and governing authority goals. Understanding that the Rouge River is a 5th order stream with a highly urbanized drainage area of 280,000 acres, the predominant need was to reduce the impact of stormwater discharge to the greatest extent possible. The team concluded that sustainable stormwater management objectives needed to be tailored to the site-specific land use, since intentional injection of stormwater at industrial sites carries the risk of spillage, and, for industrial redevelopment sites, stormwater re-injection can accelerate groundwater migration and accumulated impact of historical land use. For many urban areas, contamination reaching the watershed surface through contaminated wetfall and dryfall constitute a significant risk to groundwater resources, independent of site activities. For the Rouge Center site, the potential risks associated with groundwater re-injection led the team to select surface water discharge with emulation of natural watershed behaviors as the most sustainable design approach. Natural watershed emulation was accomplished through five elements: Hydraulic flow buffering is used to emulate a natural floodplain watershed; the goal is to capture the entire discharge from a 10-year storm event and evenly discharge it to the Rouge River over a period of 15 to 20 days. Stormwater is stored in subterranean porous beds prior to discharge; these beds were designed to provide temperature moderation that may not be obtained in surface water storage. The surface of the porous storage beds also provide a "dual use," allowing space for storage of products on site. The porous storage system offers an opportunity to maintain aeration, and further aeration occurs as water is passed slowly through constructed wetlands prior to discharge.ù Suspended inorganic solids will be settled in chambers throughout the stormwater conduit network, in the porous storage beds, and in constructed wetlands. The overall result will be an 85 percent reduction of suspended inorganic solids, compared to an uncontrolled stormwater discharge from the same facility. Constructed wetlands, the finishing step in stormwater processing at the Rouge, serve to re-introduce a small portion of the natural, complex organic matter that feeds the natural stream ecology. The porous storage-constructed wetland strategy enabled Ford to implement the environmentally protective watershed emulation strategy at less than half the capital investment and less than five percent of the annual operating costs that would have been incurred through a conventional treatment plant approach. investments.