Agricultural Engineering Project for De Heus Successfully Delivered by IntES in Vietnam

In the last month we are delighted to announce the completion of a new Agricultural Engineering project for De Heus in Vietnam. The new poultry slaughterhouse has a capacity to process 2000 birds per hour and required the repurposing of an existing warehouse facility as well as integration of new office space.

Agricultural Engineering Project for De Heus in Vietnam delivered by IntES

Why De Heus Chose Us:

De Heus, as a long-established international leader in the animal nutrition industry operate worldwide and are devoted to advancing agricultural development, attaining progress through efficiency and technology. Principles that very much align with IntES and our own conviction in effectiveness and innovation in engineering.

De Heus has a long-lasting relationship with our teams in various locations and countries worldwide and we first discussed this particular agricultural engineering project in early 2019. The project was to be located in in the Thuong Tin district of Hanoi, Vietnam. De Heus’ requirements for this specific project encompassed tailoring an approach where thier joint venture partner would be fully involved and had the specific challenge of reusing and repurposing an existing building to convert it for the specifics for this new user’s purpose. This was a project of strategic value to the partnership which would allow them to greatly increase capacity, through which each partner would utilise its individual strengths in developing their offering and serving the local community.

Following detailed discussions De Heus chose to engage us as the lead project engineers for this important new development due to the trust in our capabilities built up over the past years and the lean approach we took towards the investment.

The Project Scope:

Key aspects of the brief we were given involved specific input from the operational team from the De Heus team and many discussions with the supplier of the main equipment on the master plan developments. The main challenges were to deal with an existing location, setting up the best operational flows, and keep the investments as per the business plan for this CAPEX investment.

From initial engagement, we quickly entered into discussions whereupon we decided on the master planning of the facility and were able to offer insight on the detailed operational requirements which allowed for key decisions to be made on hygiene and maintainability. The focus element of this project was the building engineering to make use of an existing 3000 m2 warehouse facility, thus we planned for making the floor space fit for the production logistics which meant a continuous balance between keeping the existing structure and rebuilding parts of the existing facility.

This project required coordination with additional agricultural engineering vendors to ensure smooth co-ordination of slaughterhouse process functions in routine operations. These included Marel with their own unique and specific requirements which were solicited and seamlessly integrated into the design process. It was important that we made accommodations for the design of the building & building services and considered the design the of the core processes in close coordination with the equipment suppliers. We covered the engineering stages from initial planning, the multi-disciplinary design in a fully coordinated 3D design, with the details for the tender exercise to ensure the best selection of builders for the best value for our client. This is where our significant experience, full-circle approach and client-centric outlook in keeping the objectives of our clients in our focus was of particular value.

Agricultural Engineering Project for De Heus in Vietnam delivered by IntES

Our Team & Client-Centric Approach:

The IntES team on this project consisted of many project team members specially put together for their collective expertise specialist to agricultural engineering. By having this specialist team and an effective collaborative approach with De Heus, we were able to deliver the project to the highest standard of quality with numerous efficiency savings contributed by the project partners which we, at IntES, framed in order to keep the overall project time line, challenged the budget, and ensured the operational team’s early involvement for delivering the best optimum result. From the initial ground-breaking ceremony the project proceeded smoothly through the construction management stage, with even South East Asia’s often extreme weather conditions of the wet season having little impact on the construction timeline, our considerable experience of dealing with such serving us well to accommodate for such events.

Nam Nguyen, a senior member of our specialist IntES engineering team working on this project in Vietnam, had this to say about the project:

“This project has been a great example of collaboration with a great team spirit in which each team member challenged each other for the best result. Any project has its hurdles but with the great mutual respect we always achieved finding solutions for this challenging project. This has been a great experience and the best recognition for our performance has been the award of the next project, similar type but located in Cambodia.”

Project Completion & Client Feedback:

Now that the project is completed and the new poultry slaughterhouse is operational, it has increased the De Heus’ production capacity to 2000 birds per hour at the site, having successfully converted their pre-existing warehouse space as required. De Heus Project Manager, Đỗ Hạnh (Ms. Helen), provided the following feedback on the project and IntES’ work:

“Having chances to work with IntES, they have been proving their qualified engineering skills day by day, especially in high-required quality food industry. Of course, every job done brings lessons but there is no failure, only feedback.  I much appreciate their learning and progressive spirit to serve better and better services. Overcoming all circumstances and specification changes, I believe a patience and win-win cooperation respect keep both relationship and deliveries in the best shape that Intes always shows.”

We very much enjoyed working with De Hues on this exciting project and have already opened up discussions to work with them again on future projects.

Agricultural Engineering Project for De Heus in Vietnam delivered by IntES


Find out more about our work in the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry and Food and Beverage industries or view other recently completed projects. At IntES what we do best is offer a fully tailored, collaborative approach from start to finish, working together with our clients to find the optimum solutions, methods and advice for each individual client and each particular project. Get in touch to discuss how we can help your business.