The International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) has selected Shire plc as the 2018 Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) “Overall Winner” at the 2018 ISPE Annual Meeting & Expo in Philadelphia.
Shire, a global biopharmaceutical company focused on neuroscience, rare diseases, gastrointestinal, internal, and regenerative medicine, won for its Facility Integration project at Los Angeles Building 8, which was designed and built with significantly improved process, material, and people flow. The company’s major goal was to avoid any interruption to ongoing operations at the facility.
The project posed significant challenges with construction occurring in the center of an already congested 11-acre campus. Prior to the construction of Building 8, the purification process was performed in a facility built in the 1930s—it was neither the most optimal nor efficient for continuing operations in this aging facility.
Project execution success factors included lean construction concepts such as working in a co-located space and utilizing advanced technologies, saving time, money, and improving overall quality. The project team used building information modeling (BIM) to model systems including conduit, hanger rods, and seismic bracing. This allowed the team to resolve over 10,000 “clashes” per week during the design phase, as well as perform a 3D virtual “fly through,” to adjust equipment access and optimize process flow.
Perhaps the most unique management tool used by the project team was a proprietary Monte Carlo–based risk modeling software that allowed the team to simulate thousands of outcomes of potential problems that accurately predicted the likelihood and severity of schedule and cost impacts, allowing the team to develop mitigation plans to prevent them from affecting the project.
Application of excellent and innovative design practices, as well as superior planning, led to the successful integration of the new facility into an existing operational campus.
(Source: ISPE)
