An Industrial Service Provider Becomes a Specialist for Modular Engineering

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And the potential is still far from being exhausted: Although the staff-intensive maintenance business, with 23,000 employees, is still more than twice as large as the Engineering division of the group (9,000 employees), new technologies and integrated system solutions should provide growth.

The management of the company has specifically identified the pharmaceutical market as a growth driver: Even though this currently leads a niche existence, with only 5% of intra-group transactions, it should significantly expand with new investment. In the long term, it could "grow faster than the market," said Bilfinger-CEO Tom Blades.

Untapping the Potential of Modular Plant Projects

Accordingly, the company managers want to flourish in this area: In Salzburg, the company acquired a new 12,000-square-meter assembly hall in the Puch/Urstein business park in April 2017. The production of ready-to-use process skids for the biopharmaceutical industry is already running at top gear. But even so-called spools, i.e. pipe structures with valves or piping module assemblies, are made close to the banks of the Salzach River.

Recently, the Salzburg company won three large orders from international pharmaceutical companies for a total of 60 million euros for which over 600 km pipes have been produced and plants of 50 metres in length have been installed.

Modular Engineering vs Single Use Bioreactors

In pharma and biotech applications, the plants from the modular system are in competition with single-use bioreactors: The use of pre-sterilized culture bags comes without costly cleaning and reduces the risk of cross contamination.

However, the concept also has disadvantages: Not only is the volume restricted to approximately 1,000 litres due to the lower stability of the bag, the so-called leachables and extractables - i.e. all the substances which could migrate from the plastic bag into the process medium - are also known weak points of the disposable reactor.

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