Marlow & Reed Electrical
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- Client
- A food manufacturer
- Main contractor
- Direct for the manufacturer
- Consultant
- The manufacturer's engineering team
- Location
- Trafford Park
- Sector
- Industrial and logistics
- Contract value
- £300k to £400k
- Programme
- 12 weeks, around a 72-hour shutdown
- Floor area
- 9,500 m² production hall
- Form of contract
- NEC4 Engineering and Construction Short Contract
- Our role
- Principal electrical contractor
- Completed
- December 2025
- Occupied throughout
- Yes: production ran right up to the shutdown
- Safety
- 0 lost-time incidents
The result in numbers
- 72 hoursthe whole changeover, inside the shutdown
- 6 hoursahead of the planned restart
- 0product lost to the works
- 2000 Amain switchboard installed and commissioned
- 180sealed LED high-bays to the hygiene standard
- 0lost-time incidents
The brief
A food manufacturer in Trafford Park needed its main switchboard replaced, and could only be without power for one 72-hour window over Christmas.
What we worked around
- The supply could be off for one 72-hour window over the Christmas shutdown, and no longer
- Everything above the lines sealed and wipe-clean, to the site's hygiene rules
- Permits to work and lock-off agreed each shift with the site's engineering team
Our solution
We moved everything we could out of the shutdown: the switchboard was built and tested off site, every new sub-main was run and terminated short of the board in the weeks before, and the changeover was rehearsed on paper with the site's engineers, shift by shift.
What we installed
- A new 2000 A main switchboard, built off site and installed over the shutdown
- New sub-mains on cable ladder to every production line
- Sealed LED high-bays to the hygiene standard in the production hall
- A thermographic survey of the new switchgear under load after the restart
Programme
Twelve weeks of preparation around production, then the changeover in 72 hours over the Christmas shutdown, with a thermographic survey under load in January.
The result
Power was restored and the lines restarted six hours ahead of plan, with no product lost and no lost-time incident.
Handover
A single-line diagram as fitted, the switchboard's test results, the thermographic baseline under load and the O&M manual.
Six hours early on a shutdown we'd been dreading all year. The planning was the best we've seen.
