"One of our problems is having a facility that wasn't designed for doing the leading-edge research that we conduct today," says Tedaldi, who is working under contract from Bechtel to SAIC as deputy director of facilities maintenance engineering.

The NCI Laboratory Animal Sciences Program supports selected microbial, viral, and ecto/endoparasite-free research animal colonies. Requirements exist at present to house approximately 65,000 cage equivalents with another 5,000 cage equivalents envisioned in the near future to support inflammation research. In addition, the program provides animal health diagnostics and diagnostic pathology services, receiving and quarantine, and scientific support services (model development, cryopreservation, fluorescent imaging, and strain rescue) in support of both the NCI Bethesda and NCI Frederick campuses.

"A real problem at the Frederick campus is that we have too many small buildings. For example, we have 14 animal buildings of 97,000 gsf containing seven cage sanitation areas and 22 autoclaves. We have all kinds of things that we would rather have consolidated. Our goal is to have one vivarium that will house up to 150 employees, associated animal holding, the animal health diagnostics laboratories, histotechnology, pathology, receiving and quarantine, as well as the program administration and veterinary staffs."

The interior configurations of the older buildings also limit the amount of space dedicated to animal housing. A typical, contemporary facility of this type would have 40 percent of its square footage taken up by animal holding rooms; at the NCI-F, the number is 25 percent.

Not only are the buildings old, but some of the equipment is, as well. NCI-F has received surplus cage and rack systems from other NCI sites. It all works, but it doesn't all match.

Keeping Repairs All in the Family

Given what he has to work with, Tedaldi and his team have developed a simple philosophy about the job: "We try to focus on keeping it operational, being AAALAC (the Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care) compliant, and looking at low-cost solutions," he says.

An important reason Tedaldi can accomplish that is that SAIC employs an on-site craft workforce of 150 people representing all the trades, from carpenters, painters, and electricians to welders, pipe fitters, and general laborers. SAIC's highly skilled work force includes pest control, telecommunications, and refrigeration specialists, and operates its own machine and millwright shops.

"We do all preventive maintenance and many of the renovations ourselves with our own engineers doing the design; our own project managers; our own crews," he says. "This is fairly unusual. Most facilities wouldn't design their workforce this way."

The on-site workforce possesses considerable historic memory of the facility, which is particularly valuable since as-built drawings are available for only two of the 100+ buildings on the campus.

SAIC outsources large projects that are exceptionally complex or cost in excess of $1 million, but its in-house workforce still provides a critical resource through their unique and invaluable knowledge base about the facilities. This information is transferred into the design drawings and specifications developed by outside architects and engineers.

"With an old facility like ours, we're generally at a disadvantage contracting out services because we don't have the as-builts," explains Tedaldi. "With no understanding of what's behind the walls, you end up with costly change-orders. On the other hand, we've taken on the internal burden of salaries and benefits. It's a tricky thing."

Tedaldi says it's difficult to do a straight cost-benefit analysis on employing that many tradespeople.

"They walk around, they see a problem, create a work order, make something to fix it, and we move on," he says. "It's not lucrative for an outside company to come in and fix a little problem, so we'd end up buying something new, and that is a more expensive solution. It's difficult to put a true cost to it.

An example of that is SAIC's new bedding disposal system, which their in-house tradespeople improved to reduce down time.

For years with the old disposal system, a truck driver pulled up to the facility, opened a valve and waited while all the bedding was released into a dumpster. The driver then emptied the dumpster into a truck and carted away the dirty bedding. This method was greatly improved with the installation of four vacuum systems, costing $150,000 each. This method is much more efficient...until someone accidentally drops an instrument into the machines.

"A piece of metal gets in there, and Boom! the system can get backed up in a hurry," says Tedaldi. "The blades that work for the vacuum were metal, so when something hard got in there, they'd stop. We changed the vendor's product and redesigned the component with very heavy, hard rubber where the metal blades were. Now when something really hard gets in there, the blades force it through, and the system keeps operating."

That's just a sampling of the onsite-craft ingenuity at work. Tedaldi says the vendor was so impressed with SAIC's improvement, he wanted to replicate it.

Function, Not Form

The NCI-F is one of the larger animal research facilities in the United States, with about 56,000 cages in 139 rooms ranging in size from 99 to 777 sf, most of which do not have cage-changing stations. Most of the racks are stacked with cages seven or eight high because the ceilings and doorways are too low to accommodate any more. In that restricted space, SAIC packs its cages almost twice as densely as might be expected based on typical industry practices. The benchmark is about 0.2 cages per shelf per room square foot; SAIC is at 0.39.

"We have double-sided racks that are placed against the walls," says Tedaldi. "Some people might raise an eyebrow to this approach, but AAALAC has looked at this and they are okay with it. It's not an approach you would design for, but it allows us to meet the research needs and certainly, there are other facilities in the country that have similar space limitations and use similar practices."

To provide the mice with a varied environment, the staff rotates the racks every day, switching the mice from the wall side to the outside of the rack.

"There are a lot of operational challenges, especially with an older facility," he says. "This is what you do when things are tight and you have to achieve a high density. It's not ideal, but AALAC has consistently given us re-accreditation because it doesn't comprise animal welfare."

Only 19 percent of the cages are ventilated, so most cages are changed twice a week. For those that are ventilated, cages are changed an average of 1.5 times a week.

The optimal situation would be to have all the mice housed in ventilated cages that are hardwired into the room's HVAC system, which enhances worker welfare with the reduction of animal dander, odor, and allergens in the ambient air, as well as minimizing effects on room humidity and temperature. Recently, NCI-F acquired some ventilated cages as hand-me-downs from another NCI facility, but it could not afford to upgrade the existing HVAC system to take full advantage of the new equipment.

"These ventilated cages were drawing air in from the room and exhausting into the room," says Tedaldi. "Obviously that is not what you want. Our rooms were built for static cages, not ventilated cages."

Instead, the in-house engineering group designed a simple but effective solution that was easily installed by the SAIC craftsforce. They ran 4-inch PVC pipes from three cages at a time, and hooked them up to a manifold. The pipes end three-quarters of an inch from the exhaust grill, so the cages are passively vented into the room's regular exhaust system. None of the motors' speeds on the exhaust or supply air systems required adjustment.

"Since the HVAC system was essentially unchanged, we didn't have to rebalance the airflow in the rooms," he says. "That was good, because rebalancing can sometimes be tricky and prevent you from operating your facility for a long time.

"It is a real low-end solution, but by doing that we were able to decrease CO₂ concentrations, room temperatures, and relative humidity," says Tedaldi. "The laboratory staff reported that odors had been appreciably reduced in the rooms. It's not too often that you can really find a win-win solution, but this one pretty much hit the mark."

Keeping Costs Low

SAIC is happy to install high-end equipment when funding allows. The company is currently renovating two floors of a large animal facility with what started out as a $10-million budget. The plan was to completely gut the electrical-mechanical systems and install ventilated racks. Then the budget was cut in half.

In the end, they had to pare their specs and install ventilated cages only on the top floor, where they were close enough to the roof. Workers removed the old HVAC systems and installed upgraded components. The floor below kept it's existing but lower capacity ductwork and thus got static cages.

Says Tedaldi: "We said to the users, 'Do you really need ventilated cages? What do you need to be AALAC compliant? That is what you are going to get, because that is all the money we have.'"

On the lower floor, they are reusing the existing supply and exhaust fans and the ductwork; the savings from that will allow them to afford the infrastructure improvements necessary to operate ventilated racks upstairs.

On the whole, it can be surprisingly expensive to renovate older facilities, says Tedaldi.

"R&D Magazine reports that animal facility renovations can cost about $300 to $350 per square foot," he says. "Our numbers typically spread well past that range depending on the scope, and can vary between $200 and $600 per square foot. And, these costs do not address the magnified operational costs associated with inefficiencies due to dispersed facilities with multiple waste handling and cage sanitation areas."

Lessons Learned

Tedaldi advises facilities managers planning renovations to make sure the occupants will be able to continue working during construction. That requires a high level of air handling control and multiple zones of air supply and exhaust. It also demands that project cost estimates and schedules account for phased construction and for workers to "gown-in" and "gown-out" of barrier facilities. These aspects can add considerable complexity to the renovation, even before the first hammer is lifted.

Another thing to remember is to not succumb to pressure from the users who are anxious to get back to work before a new system or piece of equipment has been fully tested.

"As much pressure as you get, you have to stick to your plan and make sure you do all the system startup properly before turning it over to the users," he says. "Once they get it and start operating, it is a real hassle to try to figure out what's wrong. Fine tuning during operation is one thing, trial and error startup is quite another."

Tedaldi also cautions against investing in the latest new technology without doing a complete cost-benefit analysis over the life of the equipment. SAIC, for example, has no robots because they cannot afford them, even though they wash enough cages to make it worthwhile. User complaints from other contemporary facilities about excessive downtime with robotics make him question their application even when sufficient funds are available.

"I have seen some smaller facilities looking at (robotics), and I'm not really sure why they are doing that," he says. "Remember, the purpose is to do research, not to have the sexiest facility."

NCI-F's philosophy of minimizing costs while focusing on the purpose of their mission—world-class science—has proved to be an effective strategy. AAALAC commended SAIC's laboratory and engineering staff for maintaining an accredited program under less than ideal conditions, says Tedaldi. He is confident that the cost-efficient facility approaches that SAIC employs will continue to impress AALAC and others in the future.

By Lisa Wesel

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