"There are two things that keep facilities people at the table with decision makers. One is strategic facilities planning and the other is capital planning. We have invested a lot of energy into building a credible database and a powerful strategic facilities platform to address these things," says Charles Manula, Jr., Wyeth's vice president of Global Research Facilities.

Wyeth is an industry leader in prescription pharmaceuticals, consumer products, and animal health. The company, which has $17 billion in net annual sales and more than 52,000 employees, is organized around three operating divisions: pharmaceuticals, consumer health products, and the Fort Dodge animal health group.

In 2003, Wyeth conducted an in-depth facility analysis that indicated significant advantages could be gained if research groups operating at 85 Bolton Street in Cambridge were consolidated to a facility on Wyeth's Cambridge Park Drive (CPD) campus.

The CPD campus is a major pharmaceutical discovery center for Wyeth, functioning as the base for three therapeutic research areas and other supporting core technology groups. The 43,000-sf off-site Bolton Street support facility housed a key core technology group, as well as NMR and crystallography equipment.

"Even though Bolton Street was only a mile and a half from CPD, it took 15 to 20 minutes to drive there, which was very disruptive for researchers sharing information and equipment," Manula says.

Wyeth's initial capital plan included $8 million for improvements to the Bolton Street facility as well as upgrades to 200 Cambridge Park Drive. The facilities team wanted to combine those funds and invest them in a way that would better serve the company over the long run.

"The annual R&D budget includes $385 million for facilities, so every dollar we contribute back allows the research groups to do more work," says Manula.

Additionally, the Bolton Street facility had an estimated real estate value of $7 million to $10 million.

Maximizing Adjacencies

The planning team used a number of strategic tools to map and execute collocation of 85 Bolton to 200 CPD. In addition to conducting extensive interviews with researchers, color-coded floor plans and detailed adjacency charts were used to study the space needs of each research group.

"Looking at adjacencies helped us establish very quickly that there was feasibility around the idea of consolidating from Bolton Street to Cambridge Park Drive," says Timothy McDermott, senior director for Wyeth Research Facilities.

At first glance, the numbers might seem improbable: Bolton Street was a 43,000-sf facility housing 48 researchers with NMR and crystallography equipment. Building 200 CPD is a six-floor, 225,000-sf life sciences facility with only 5,000 sf of available space.

"Going from 43,000 gross square feet to 5,000 net sounds like a terrible thing to go through, but we actually increased the usable space for many researchers by optimizing their adjacencies and increasing access to shared equipment," Manula says.

A reorganization in 2003 had left 200 CPD in a state of non-optimal adjacency, and the relocation process provided an opportunity to re-distribute space in relation to actual scientific need. As part of the consolidation, 57 researchers were relocated within 200 CPD, and the central information library was removed to make room for NMR and crystallography equipment.

Leadership and Consensus

Integrating Bolton Street's structural biology and computational chemistry personnel into 200 CPD's existing research work groups required a high level of cooperation from everyone. Project teams were formed with leadership representatives from each research group.

"To achieve maximum efficiency from lab space, it is critical to build trust with the researchers; you really need to understand the science they're doing and what the key adjacencies are," says McDermott.

Project development happened in a three-stage process. Regular keystone meetings were held to review plans and make alterations. Focus teams were created based on areas of the building, and teams responsible for technical areas, like NMR, had senior level representatives who could enforce decisions within their respective groups.

"Every time we made changes, we took the information back to the scientists to get their input. The teams were given the opportunity to review everything," McDermott explains.

The integrity of space data proved to be critical throughout the entire process. Funding for the project was accelerated in direct response to faith in the facility data.

"I can't emphasize enough the importance of having accurate as-built drawings. Breaking things down in terms of data gave the scientists a sense of transparency that allowed them to see things were being done based on logic and not emotion," says McDermott.

Communication and Consensus

To keep the move on track, a contract was created that established performance benchmarks and timelines for all parties involved.

"Contract terms were reviewed at every meeting to ensure that we were keeping our end of the bargain. This also gave us the opportunity to make sure the research teams were providing us with necessary things like master equipment lists and personnel," McDermott says.

Conducting the relocation with an emphasis on user input accelerated the project's delivery time. Toolbox meetings were held every morning at 7:00 to discuss the day's activities and how to minimize disruptions.

Collocation in 200 CPD was approved with the stated caveat that the move maximized all space at the facility and eliminated any future additions within the current configuration of the building.

Language of Metrics

To get a realistic perspective on how space was being utilized, it was important to define a standard set of metrics.

"We wanted to normalize our metrics based on a standard module, which allows us to compare space utilization within a building, across the company, and across the industry," McDermott says.

Two of the primary metrics Wyeth planners consider in relation to research space are "Net Square Feet" (NSF) and "Equivalent Linear Feet" (ELF).

The NSF metric, defined as width-times-length, is used as a generic point of reference. Planners used a 363-NSF (11-ft by 33-ft) module as a starting point for 200 CPD's modifications.

ELF is the linear feet available within a lab for bench and support equipment.

"A molecular biology laboratory is going to have different NSF and ELF requirements than an analytical chemistry lab. There is no single metric that applies to all of them. Scientists understand this intuitively, but giving it to them in terms of data really increases the sense of transparency and trust," says McDermott.

Exceeding Expectations

Now in its final phase of execution, the Bolton Street relocation has proven to be a success. In addition to aligning existing resources with the master site plan, the re-programming of 200 CPD also improved the usable NSF and ELF for a majority of the facility's scientists.

"We were able to execute the consolidation much faster than we had originally projected. Everybody thought we would have to build a new building—which is a three-year project for a research laboratory—but we were able to cut that process in half," Manula says.

Due to the rapid delivery time and direct productivity increases, the consolidation generated a more than 10 percent cost savings. Additionally, the sale of the Bolton Street facility was in the upper end of the originally projected amount.

"While the move directly increased efficiency by eliminating redundancies like offices, storage space, and conference rooms, the most important thing we gained was the ability to leverage research adjacencies in ways we couldn't before," says Manula.

By Johnathon Allen