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September 11, 2026
Key takeaways
- A master plan is less about the layout and more about creating shared understanding of where a site is today and where the business wants it to go.
- Greenfield sites have visible constraints from the outset. Brownfield sites carry decades of accumulated decisions that quietly limit safety, flow and flexibility.
- One-on-one stakeholder conversations usually surface more than workshops. The insights only make sense once they are combined.
- Simple 2D layouts are the fastest way to test options before committing to detailed design.
- The strongest master plans balance ROI-driven projects with enabling projects, so businesses see returns while building toward the long-term vision.
This Month’s Expert, Andy Stockley
This month, TEG Projects Director and South Island Regional Manager Andy Stockley shares what he’s learned from leading master planning exercises across New Zealand’s manufacturing sector.
Andy is a Chartered Engineer (CEng MIMechE) with more than 20 years of manufacturing industry management experience, gained across companies including Frucor, Unilever and Lion before joining TEG Projects. He now leads TEG’s South Island Regional Office in Christchurch, taking capital projects from scoping through design, installation and capitalisation.
In my time with TEG, I’ve been involved in master planning exercises ranging from greenfield developments through to some very complex brownfield manufacturing sites.
While every site is different, I’ve found that the biggest challenge is rarely the layout itself. More often, it’s building a clear understanding of where the business wants to go and creating alignment around what is helping or hindering that journey today.
Where master planning really starts
Before any options are developed, I spend time speaking with stakeholders, understanding their aspirations for the business, and testing those aspirations against the realities of the site. What often surprises me is how different the perspectives can be. People working within the same operation frequently have very different views on where the constraints lie, what is working well, and what future growth will require.
Why the best conversations happen one-on-one
In my experience, some of the most valuable conversations happen one-on-one. People are often more open when they’re not sitting around a boardroom table, and ideas, concerns and opportunities that may never emerge in a workshop setting begin to surface. Individually these insights can seem minor, but when combined they often reveal the clearest picture of how a site really functions and where the greatest opportunities exist.
One of the most rewarding parts of a master planning exercise is seeing that shared understanding develop. Once stakeholders align around the reality of today’s operation, conversations about tomorrow become far more constructive. Taking stock of the current state creates a foundation for informed decision-making and often helps resolve long-standing differences in opinion with facts rather than assumptions.
Master planning a greenfield development
Translating that understanding into a greenfield development is, in many respects, the easier challenge. The constraints are generally visible from the outset: land boundaries, access points, traffic flows, utilities, process relationships and future expansion requirements. The challenge then becomes balancing those requirements with efficient movement of people and materials, minimising vehicle interactions, clustering services where practical, and ensuring the site can evolve as the business grows.
Why is brownfield master planning harder than greenfield?
Brownfield sites, however, are where master planning becomes particularly interesting.
Many of the brownfield sites I’ve worked on have evolved over decades. Buildings have been added when capacity was needed. Equipment has been relocated to solve operational issues. Roads have appeared, services have been rerouted, and expansions have been implemented to support immediate business priorities. In isolation, each decision made sense at the time.
What I often find is that the cumulative effect of these decisions can create a site that no longer aligns with modern expectations for safety, traffic segregation, operational efficiency or future flexibility. Rarely is there one major issue. More often, it’s the combination of hundreds of sensible decisions made over many years that gradually create constraints nobody intended.
This is where I believe the real value of master planning lies. It provides an opportunity to step back from day-to-day operations, look at the site as a whole, and ask whether the current layout still supports the business the organisation is trying to become.
Start with simple 2D layouts
When it comes to developing layouts, I’ve often found that simple 2D plans provide the best starting point. Before investing in detailed design, they allow stakeholders to explore options, challenge assumptions and test future growth scenarios quickly. Some of the most productive discussions I’ve been involved in have happened around a relatively simple layout that clearly illustrated a site’s opportunities and constraints.
How are master plan projects costed and sequenced?
Once preferred layouts begin to emerge, the conversation shifts towards order-of-magnitude costing, benefits identification and project sequencing. One lesson I’ve seen repeated across many sites is that not all projects deliver value in the same way. Some projects generate direct operational or financial returns, while others act as enablers, creating the platform required for future improvements.
Often the most successful master plans combine both. Early-stage enabling projects can be packaged alongside ROI-driven initiatives, allowing businesses to realise immediate benefits while steadily progressing towards a longer-term vision. Where that balance can be achieved, organisations often gain momentum and confidence to continue investing in the future state.
What is the real outcome of a master plan?
Having been through these exercises with many organisations, I’ve come to believe that the most valuable outcome isn’t the report, the drawings or even the phasing plan itself.
It’s the confidence that comes from knowing the business understands where it is today, has alignment around where it wants to be tomorrow, and has a practical roadmap connecting the two.
When that happens, today’s decisions stop being individual investments and become deliberate steps towards a future that stakeholders have helped define and genuinely support.
Frequently asked questions
What is a manufacturing site master plan? A manufacturing site master plan is a staged development roadmap for a production site. It documents the current state of buildings, process flows, traffic, services and land, then sets out how the site should change over time to support the business strategy, including indicative costs, benefits and project sequencing.
How is brownfield master planning different from greenfield? Greenfield constraints are visible from day one: boundaries, access, utilities and process adjacencies. Brownfield sites have decades of incremental decisions built into them, so the constraints are often hidden. The work involves untangling why the site is the way it is before deciding what should change.
Who should be involved in a master planning exercise? Operations, engineering, maintenance, health and safety, logistics, quality and senior leadership. One-on-one conversations across these groups usually surface more useful detail than a single workshop, because people raise concerns they may not voice in a group setting.
How long does a site master plan take? It depends on site complexity and how many stakeholders need to be engaged, but most exercises run from a few weeks for a focused site through to several months for large multi-building operations.
Do you need a master plan before starting a capital project? Not always, but without one there’s a real risk that individual projects solve today’s problem while creating tomorrow’s constraint. A master plan makes sure each investment is a deliberate step toward an agreed future state.
What does a master plan actually deliver? Typically: a current-state assessment, one or more future-state layout options, order-of-magnitude costings, identified benefits, and a phased implementation roadmap.
