ISPE Names 2018 Facility of the Year Awards Overall Winner

ISPE has announced Shire as the 2018 Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) Overall Winner at the 2018 ISPE Annual Meeting & Expo in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Shire was awarded for their Facility Integration project, Los Angeles Building 8, in Los Angeles, California. A global biotech company and home to one of the largest plasma fractionation sites in the world, Shire’s major goal of the project was to avoid any interruption to ongoing operations at the facility. Building 8 was designed and built with significantly improved process, material, and people flow.

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 this new facility into an existing operational campus, and the reason Shire was selected as the 2018 Facility of the Year Awards Overall Winner.

Learn more about Shire’s award-winning facility and the FOYA program.