ThyssenKrupp Steel AG is presently setting up a new steel plant on an area of 9 km² consisting predominately of alluvial terrain in the State of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The planned annual production is 5.0 mio ton of crude steel. Cohesive sediments of soft to very soft consistency up to considerable depths and a groundwater level close to the surface provide extreme difficult foundation conditions for heavy industry structures of the envisaged nature. A major challenge is the geotechnical foundation solution by stone column soil improvement for the heavily loaded iron ore storage yard and the adjacent corridors for loading and transport facilities. The project had to be completed by 2009 in only 3 years. This article describes the way of gathering and processing basic site data for an industrial project of the planned magnitude. Subsoil data available are reviewed and are then used in the soil improvement analysis. The results of the full-scale load test are reported. Furthermore the enormous project requirements with regard to site and material logistics as well as to production progress are shown.