• Bilfinger to assist with the extension of the Bardon Hill quarry (UK)
• Development, delivery, installation, and networking of the electrical infrastructure for a large number of components
• Client: Aggregate Industries, a subsidiary of LafargeHolcim

The industrial services provider Bilfinger has been selected by Aggregate Industries, a subsidiary of the building materials producer LafargeHolcim, as the winning bidder to supply comprehensive industrial services. The scope of the contract covers the development, delivery, installation, and networking of the electrical infrastructure of the many components and technology platforms required to extend Bardon Hill quarry in Great Britain. The services in question, which are part of Bilfinger's Engineering & Technologies service line, are to be completed by the summer of 2019. The project will be executed by the group subsidiary Bilfinger UK.

Tom Blades, Bilfinger CEO: "The expansion of the quarry at Bardon Hill is one of the most ambitious projects being pursued in the European cement industry. We are very proud to have won the contract for this comprehensive service contract. This is thanks first of all to our expertise, which allows us to also take on highly complex and technologically sophisticated tasks. On the other hand, our broad and integrated scope of services allows our clients to reap substantial added value since all the needed services are provided by a single source, meaning they can dispense with complex coordination processes."

Bilfinger will be tasked with setting up an electrical network to link up the required equipment, components, and subsystems on the one hand and the various switchgear and control facilities on the other. The objective is to provide the quarry operator with continuous and seamless real-time information for purposes of steering the facility and monitoring the status of individual system elements. In this way, Bilfinger will contribute a key portion of the facility's intelligent automation system, which will employ the newest technology platforms and processes. The electrical networking for the project alone will entail laying roughly twelve kilometers of high-voltage and low-voltage cables as well as installing substations and transformers.

Aggregate Industries also decided to award the contract based on Bilfinger's self-developed workplace safety concept. Since the agreed services will have to be performed within narrow, predefined time frames, safety at the workplace will play a key role in this particular project. Bilfinger has already received numerous customer awards for its excellent standards of workplace safety; as part of the current collaboration, the company will share its know-how and procedures in this field with the other project participants.

Another significant competitive advantage for Bilfinger in the bidding and award process was its close ties to the suppliers of the required components, platforms, and software programs. In light of the fact that Bilfinger has been working closely with many of these firms for years now and is quite familiar with their products, very little time will be required for training, instructions, and explanations.

In the past, the aggregate materials extracted from Bardon Hill quarry in the county of Leicestershire have been used for high-profile construction projects such as Olympic Park in London, Wembley Stadium, St. Pancras rail station as well as the M1 motorway. The quarry is currently being extended under the supervision of Aggregate Industries in order to boost its future output capacity.