Service

Your Owner’s Representative for Food & Beverage Capital Projects

When millions are committed to a processing facility build, you need an advocate whose only mandate is protecting your investment. DPS serves as your owner’s representative across the full project lifecycle — aligning engineering, budget, schedule, and compliance so every contractor, vendor, and decision serves your operational and financial outcome. From process design through commissioning, your interests come first.

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DPS · Owner’s Representative
Automation and Controls
Construction Risk Factors

Challenges in Providing This Service in the Market

Food and beverage capital projects operate at the intersection of process engineering complexity, aggressive regulatory requirements, and operational deadlines that cannot slip without direct revenue impact. Yet most manufacturers enter $1M-to-$5M facility builds without a single person on their side of the table whose sole function is to protect the owner’s interests. The general contractor manages construction. The equipment vendor manages the sale. The architect manages the drawings. Nobody manages the outcome — and the gaps between those scopes are precisely where budgets overrun, schedules collapse, and facilities commission months late with systems that do not integrate.

  • Challenge 01

    Misaligned contractor incentives

    General contractors are compensated to build what is specified, not to question whether the specification serves your production goals. Change orders are a revenue event for the contractor and a budget crisis for the owner. Without an owner’s representative fluent in food and beverage process engineering, you lack the technical standing to challenge scope changes, evaluate alternates, or identify when a proposed substitution compromises FDA or USDA compliance.

  • Challenge 02

    Fragmented accountability across trades

    A typical food-grade facility project involves mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural, process piping, refrigeration, controls, and sanitation contractors — each operating under separate scopes with separate project managers. Coordination failures between these trades are the single largest source of schedule delay and rework cost in food plant construction. The owner is expected to resolve conflicts they often lack the technical depth to adjudicate.

  • Challenge 03

    Regulatory exposure discovered at the wrong time

    SQF audit readiness, USDA-FSIS grant of inspection, FDA preventive controls requirements, and BRC site standards each impose specific facility design criteria. When these requirements surface during punch list rather than during design development, the remediation cost is three to five times higher and the timeline impact is measured in months.

  • Challenge 04

    Loss of operational continuity during construction

    For expansion and retrofit projects in active production facilities, every day of unplanned downtime has a direct cost. Without dedicated capital project oversight from someone who understands your production schedule, changeover windows, and seasonal peaks, construction sequencing defaults to what is convenient for the contractor rather than what protects your revenue.
The DPS Solution

Building Scalable and Efficient Production Systems

DPS operates as your owner’s representative with a mandate that is structurally simple and uncommon in this industry: every engineering decision, budget recommendation, and schedule directive we issue is evaluated against one criterion — does it serve the owner’s operational and financial outcome. We do not represent the general contractor, the equipment supplier, or the architect. We represent you. That clarity of role is what makes the function effective, and it is why DPS pre-qualifies each engagement to ensure alignment before accepting an owner’s rep assignment.

Our approach is grounded in the six in-house engineering disciplines — process, mechanical, electrical, structural, plumbing, and controls — that give our team the technical authority to manage every trade on your project with subject-matter credibility. When a mechanical contractor proposes a substitution on glycol piping material, DPS evaluates that change against your process temperatures, CIP chemical compatibility, and long-term maintenance cost — not against an abstract specification. When an electrical subcontractor’s panel schedule conflicts with your future automation expansion, we catch it in submittal review, not during commissioning. This depth is what separates a true owner’s representative from a project monitor who tracks schedules but cannot evaluate engineering substance.

Because DPS also delivers full Design-Build-Manage services for food and beverage facilities, our owner’s rep engagements draw on direct construction and fabrication experience across all 50 U.S. states and Canada. We know what installations actually cost because we perform them. We know where schedules fail because we have managed the trades. And when the project demands it, our D-B-M capability allows us to transition seamlessly from advisory oversight into hands-on execution — providing a continuity of knowledge that no standalone consulting firm or third-party project management office can replicate.

Key Capabilities

Capabilities Supporting Modern Production Operations

Integrated engineering, operational, and project capabilities designed to support efficient, scalable, and reliable production environments.

  • PLC Programming & Logic Development

    Custom ladder logic, structured text, and function block programs developed on Allen-Bradley, Siemens, and other major platforms for process control, safety interlocks, and high-speed sequencing across food and beverage unit operations.

  • SCADA System Design & Deployment

    Full supervisory control and data acquisition architecture including server configuration, real-time process visualization, historical trending, and role-based access designed for multi-line F&B production environments.

  • Recipe Management & Batch Control

    ISA-88-aligned recipe structures that allow production teams to manage formulations, ingredient scaling, and batch sequencing directly from the HMI — reducing changeover time and eliminating manual transcription errors.

  • CIP/SIP Automation & Validation

    Automated clean-in-place and sterilize-in-place sequences with full parametric data logging for FDA and USDA compliance, integrated with process scheduling to minimize non-productive time between production runs.

  • Energy & Utility Management Systems

    Real-time monitoring and automated control of boiler, compressed air, glycol, refrigeration, and HVAC systems to reduce per-unit energy cost while maintaining critical environmental parameters in temperature-sensitive processing areas.

  • Controls Integration & Retrofits

    Integration of new automation layers into existing brownfield facilities — migrating legacy relay logic or outdated DCS platforms to modern PLC/SCADA infrastructure without extended production shutdowns.
The DPS Integrated Advantage

Engineering Scope & Deliverables

The following table defines the scope, key deliverables, and owner-side oversight actions DPS performs at each phase of a food and beverage capital project when engaged as your owner’s representative.

Project Phase DPS Owner’s Rep Deliverables Oversight Focus
Pre-Design & Planning Scope validation report, capital budget benchmarking, contractor pre-qualification criteria, project charter development Verify project scope aligns with production goals and approved investment thesis before design begins
Design Development Engineering submittal review log, specification compliance matrix, P&ID markup and comment tracking, utility load verification Ensure all drawings and specifications reflect owner’s operational intent, regulatory requirements, and future expansion provisions
Bidding & Procurement Bid evaluation matrix, vendor qualification audits, contract term recommendations, equipment lead-time tracking Protect owner’s commercial position through scope-aligned bid comparison and contract language review
Construction Administration Weekly site observation reports, RFI tracking and resolution log, change order analysis with cost and schedule impact, trade coordination minutes Identify and resolve field conflicts before they generate rework; hold contractors accountable to approved scope and schedule
Equipment Installation Installation quality inspection reports, process piping and utility tie-in verification, equipment alignment and anchor bolt audits Confirm equipment installed per manufacturer specifications and DPS-reviewed process design documents
Controls & Automation PLC/SCADA functional specification review, I/O checkout verification, recipe and batch logic validation, alarm and interlock testing Verify automation systems deliver the operator experience and data visibility defined in the owner’s functional requirements
Commissioning & Startup Commissioning protocol, punch list management, utility system performance verification, CIP cycle validation, operator training coordination Structured transition from construction to operations with documented performance baselines and zero deferred deficiencies
Turnover & Closeout As-built document package, warranty tracking matrix, maintenance schedule recommendations, lessons-learned report Owner receives a complete, organized facility record with all warranties activated and no outstanding contractor obligations
Project Verification Questions

Common Questions About Automation & Controls Service

Quick answers to the questions we hear most often from prospective clients evaluating automation partners.

An owner’s representative is an independent professional who acts exclusively on behalf of the facility owner throughout a capital project — managing contractors, reviewing engineering, controlling budget, and enforcing schedule on the owner’s behalf. Food and beverage manufacturers need this role because processing facility projects involve specialized regulatory requirements from FDA, USDA, SQF, and BRC, complex process engineering across multiple utility systems, and tight integration between construction and active production operations. Without a technically qualified advocate on the owner’s side, decisions default to the parties who have commercial interests that may not align with yours.
DPS defines the engagement scope at the outset and maintains role separation through contractual structure. In a pure owner’s rep engagement, DPS does not perform design or construction work on the same project — our role is exclusively oversight and advocacy. When a client requires both services, DPS is transparent about the dual role, and the owner’s rep function operates with documented independence protocols. Our pre-qualification process and business-first philosophy mean we will decline engagements where role conflict would compromise the owner’s interests.
The highest-value engagement point is before design begins — during capital planning, scope definition, and contractor selection. DPS involvement at this stage prevents the most expensive category of project failures: scope misalignment between what the owner’s production operation requires and what the design and construction team delivers. That said, DPS has been engaged mid-construction on projects experiencing budget overruns or schedule failures, and our engineering depth allows us to assess current-state conditions rapidly and implement corrective oversight within the first two weeks.
DPS provides owner’s representative services across all 50 states and Canada, operating from offices in Cary, North Carolina and Lake Forest, California. Our in-house engineering team conducts design review, submittal evaluation, and cost analysis remotely, while site observation and contractor oversight are performed on-location by DPS engineers who travel to your facility. Our vetted national contractor network also provides DPS with region-specific labor cost data, trade availability insight, and jurisdictional permitting knowledge that strengthens oversight quality regardless of project location.
Any capital project where the owner lacks in-house process engineering and construction management resources benefits from an owner’s representative, but the role delivers disproportionate value on projects involving new facility construction, multi-phase expansion programs, facility relocations, and high-complexity process installations such as aseptic systems, USDA-inspected protein processing lines, or beverage co-packing facilities handling multiple product formats. DPS is currently providing oversight on a flagship beverage co-packing facility designed to produce 20 million cases in Year 1 and scale to 80 million — the type of program where owner’s rep involvement directly protects tens of millions in capital deployment.