DaimlerChrysler's two large assembly plants on the same site in Fenton, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, were selected for simultaneous model upgrades and BEI was chosen to provide AE services in support of both ambitious programs.  St. Louis Assembly Plant South retooled for the 2001 RS minivan, a companion project to the same program at the Windsor Assembly Plant, with a multi-phase construction that included a 42,000 sf Body Shop addition, new bias truck docks on a major perimeter access road, rail dock fill-in and relocation, truss analysis and reinforcing for new conveyor paths, and a high bay addition over the existing plant for body storage.  The logistics of adding docks before closing truck and rail docks to facilitate construction additions, generally working around a tight congested site and all the while keeping the plant operational, provided the challenges at the South Plant.

St. Louis Assembly Plant North included a 350,000 sf Body Shop addition with rail access, in addition to smaller additions to trim and paint and renovations to the existing operating plant, to support the new Dodge Ram 2002 DR program, recently launched, and creating excitement in dealer showrooms.

The size of the North Body Shop offered the opportunity to apply the "low cost building" concept approach that was so successful at the Toledo North (Jeep Liberty) plant, with some notable advancements. The modular concept was adapted to wrap around an existing paint shop, and 3D CATIA CCPlant was used to start design and detailing before 2D drawings.  The latter technique provided the design team with fully coordinated systems before development of detail drawings.  The 3D simulation of building systems resulted in only 3 interferences discovered in the entire new body shop, and they were due to oversized structural truss gusset plates not modeled as fabricated (future modeling will include gusset plates from shop drawings).  An alleged sheet metal air duct and electrical bus duct interference was corrected when the sheet metal was reinstalled to the correct modeled dimension.  Since the 3D simulation was fully intelligent, additional benefits included almost instantaneous bill of materials generation which helped to speed up bid timing (i.e., electrical bus duct) and contract negotiations (i.e., structural tonnage clarification).  A particularly complicated paint shop conveyor enclosure addition involved a warped turn with complex geometrics which in the hands of CATIA became fully dimensioned and detailed, giving the fabricators an easy time to fit.

Other challenges involved a unique site soil and foundation solution which was achieved with subconsultant SME of Plymouth, Michigan.  The body shop was sited, in part, over an old sludge pond which had been cleaned and then filled with loose and rocky material.  An innovative soil raft was designed and installed to bridge the potential voids and prevent settlements under the floor slab supporting tolerance sensitive body shop automation.