Construction by its very nature is dirty, dusty work. Adam Bell, MD of Building Projects (UK), explains how pharmaceutical companies can avoid both contamination and disruption when undertaking an expansion project.
Construction work within a pharmaceutical facility has long been a specific discipline, requiring the experience and expertise of specialist construction professionals. This includes the design and build of clean, aseptic and sterile facilities, HVAC and mechanical and electrical (M&E) services for cleanrooms, laboratories, manufacturing and packaging areas, in line with ISO 9001:2008.
Pharmaceutical companies have come under increasing pressure in recent years to reduce the cost of products while balancing ever-stricter compliance and ever-changing global regulations. These challenges create a need to expand existing pharmaceutical plants to facilitate increased production as well as improve R&D productivity. Any building work carried out to extend facilities has to be completed with zero contamination and zero disruption, allowing business to go on as usual.
Completing a major construction project in a live pharmaceutical production environment requires considerable planning and stringent health and safety practices to achieve both zero contamination and zero disruption. That is why Building Projects (UK) developed its own High Care Environment Charter that sets out its commitment to providing high care construction services of the highest quality to the strictest safety standards.
The company’s detailed live construction programme ensures constant communication to enable a safe, contamination-free project, delivered on time and to the very highest standards.
The company has long-standing working relationships with various large blue chip clients, one of which is global pharmaceutical giant Teva UK Ltd, which specialises in the development, production and marketing of generic and proprietary branded pharmaceuticals.
As part of a large multimillion pound investment programme Building Projects extended a state-of-the-art facility in Runcorn for manufacturing and packaging purposes. In July 2012, there was a need to expand further and plans were put in place to increase working space for Teva’s production area by opening up the change room corridor and redeveloping the office areas. A further project was then initiated to convert former office space into an inspection room to support the newly expanded production facility.
The challenge was to complete these high specification construction projects safely and in a live environment without interruption to the client’s 24-hour production area or exposure of the production and packaging areas to any contamination.
Among the contamination prevention methods used on these projects was the erection of a large temporary screen down the entire length of the production facility to facilitate dust-proof, airtight segregation. The robust, dust-proof barriers screened construction work from production, creating a working zone. A temporary airlock with zipped double doors was created, allowing access for workers and building materials.
Specialised tools
The latest high care environment technologies were used to ensure zero contamination during demolition and structural steelwork installation. The drilling, sawing and cutting of masonry and steelwork was carried out using newly purchased tools from Hilti, which attach to dust removal systems incorporating HEPA vacuums, helping to prevent up to 99% of dust particles from becoming airborne.
Building Projects (UK) advises that any strip out or demolition works that are likely to cause dust within a live pharmaceutical environment have the necessary robust air-tight dust-proof screening in place to handle the changes in pressure caused by the necessary dust extraction.
The company appoints a single, highly experienced and dedicated project manager to co-ordinate the work, communicating weekly with the customer to deliver project updates. The project manager utilises live construction plans to keep customers up to date with overall progress and details of any necessary modifications to the original plan so that there are no surprises in terms of costing or timing.
Exemplary planning is key to the success of such a complex design and construction project, and never more so than in a pharmaceutical production environment, where interruption to the client’s business or risk of contamination is not acceptable. The planning process is extremely complex and must take into consideration all manner of potential risks. Cleanroom construction specialists are experienced in dealing with such risks on a daily basis and understand the measures necessary to conclude such a sophisticated project on time and on budget.
The extension work completed for Teva UK Ltd included structural propping of AHU and plant deck, wall demolition and the installation of structural steelwork – all completed behind the robust, dust-proof segregation barriers capable of maintaining the necessary air pressures.
All access to working areas was through sealed zipped doors that were incorporated into the temporary screening and the use of tacky-matting as dust traps in all access points.
Temporary access to change area through segregation screens for controlled strip out and to minimise disruption for Teva employees
A further challenge during the project to construct an inspection area from existing office space involved the alignment of floor levels. A new, raised, 600mm deep dense filled Jablite insulation sub-floor, with 200mm power-floated concrete with an epoxy resin covered finish was installed to meet this requirement. The 330m2 inspection room floor was load bearing and insulated and finished to the same standards as the high specification production area.
Daily inspections by the construction team ensured the integrity of the contamination prevention methods and further contamination inspections were carried out prior to handover. To ensure further that the client’s business was not interrupted during the project, a significant proportion of the construction work was undertaken out of hours.
The consequences of bringing in a construction specialist, with such expertise, stringent planning and project management, have resulted in both projects being completed on time, to budget and with no disruption or contamination to the production facility. The consequences of getting it wrong, from a financial or reputation perspective is not an option.
Ceiling installation in the new packing line area
Dave Radford, project manager for Teva UK Ltd who oversaw the changes, said: “The change area and office modification project was completed on time and within budget with no interruption to our production area.
“I do not underestimate the complexity and planning required in achieving such a result, and we are delighted with the standard of workmanship and client-focused approach from Building Projects (UK). The whole project was seamless from beginning to end.”
