Pfizer's facilities portfolio increased by about 40 percent to 9.4 million sf on six major sites worldwide after the merger with Warner Lambert, begun in late 1999 and completed in 2001. The resulting company had decentralized planning groups from around the world, each with its own policies, procedures, and design standards. Part of Manula's job was to establish consistency among the varied sites.

PGRD also was motivated by financial forces to be more accountable for facilities costs.

"Our company spends roughly twice as much on R&D as any other company, and investors want to see what we are getting back from that," says Manula. "This external pressure has cascaded down internally. For a long time we in R&D did not measure capital, the impact of capital, or capital planning as discreetly as we needed to."

Senior management found shortcomings in three areas of developing new R&D facilities: policies and procedures (most notably the appropriation of capital funding); project execution and construction management (cost and schedule overruns); and, Manula's focus, planning and design (from conception through handoff to the execution team.)

Three Tools of the Trade

Manula's goal in addressing planning and design problems was to create universally applicable tools based on facts, history, and measurable data from relevant comparisons.

"Most importantly, these tools will give us a consistent approach and a common language that project managers, and hopefully R&D leaders and site representatives, will use across the globe," says Manula.

The three tools are benchmarks, design guidelines, and best practices. Manula stresses that it is important to apply all three tools for successful planning and design. He compares the tools to three parts of a bridge: one side of the bridge is the customer; the other side is senior management; and in between is the project manager. The benchmark tool focuses on senior management; the design guidelines help the project manager guide the project through its design phase; and the best practices focus on the customer, who is more interested in operations and life cycle issues.

"Applying only one or two of the tools will weaken the bridge by eroding the confidence in your decision making and even the decision making of senior management to invest in that project," he explains.

Benchmarking with a Twist

After the merger, Pfizer spent five months collecting benchmarking data from other pharmaceutical and consumer products companies, but primarily from its own sites worldwide. Using Pfizer sites makes it easier to ensure that the numbers are being calculated consistently and producing relevant comparisons. That makes it easier to normalize the numbers by type of space (parking, office, laboratory, or vivarium); time; and money. Ideally, it is also helpful to normalize by location, which can be difficult because of variables such as the number of projects in the area, the availability of labor and skilled labor, and where the project falls in a company's construction schedule. Benchmarking data needs to be updated at least annually, Manula says.

PGRD put its own spin on benchmarking when it decided to use ranges of numbers from the data it collects, rather than deciding on a specific figure; and to use the ranges more as a reality check than a prescription.

"There was a lot of disagreement at the senior management/executive level about the right numbers to use," says Manula. "And we were concerned about stifling the creativity that you would want in the design process.

"PGRD defines benchmarks as 'planning ranges,' and we think that is really important," he continues. "We are giving our project managers and our decision makers the flexibility to have a range in which to feel comfortable.

"If you go to the high end of a range and can justify it, it might prompt questions, but it won't kill the project," explains Manula. "If you're at the low end, management might want to know that you haven't cut quality or sacrificed safety."

The system also leaves room for managers to influence costs by tightening the high end of the planning range.

Design Guidelines Keep Everyone on Track

PGRD also developed a unique way to lay out its design guidelines for the customer. Manula has created a scorecard system that ranks a project's architectural and engineering features on three levels based on cost and complexity. Level 1 is 'basic,' Level 2 'intermediate,' and Level 3 'complex or expansive.'

The front of the card has a photo of a feature at each level from an existing Pfizer facility; the back of the card has a detailed description of each feature at that level.

"This system makes it a lot easier to converse with your client when they say they want an atrium, for example," says Manula. "You can show them what that means on three different levels of cost or three different levels of quality, and the client can pick and choose."

If the final cost estimate for the project comes in over budget, the project manager can meet with the client and easily show which features could be driving up the cost and which can be dropped a level to achieve savings.

"We picked eight architectural features and six engineering features because these are the ones that seem to have the most impact on cost and scope, and over which the project manager has the most control during the design phase," says Manula.

Architectural features include:

Engineering features include:

"We want engineers to use this tool conceptually, to develop a better relationship with the customer," he explains. "It also creates a road map and helps develop the scope of the project."

Best Practices Yield the Best Results

PGRD uses best practices to guide the design development of new projects for four reasons: to get more out of the company's capital investment as a matter of fiscal responsibility; to achieve a longer term life cycle for the money; to maintain a company-wide consistent design philosophy; and to leverage lessons learned in previous projects. It allows the planning team to look at issues and design parameters in more detail than the planning guidelines provide.

To do this, Manula assigns a planning standard—'not acceptable,' 'acceptable,' 'acceptable and recommended,' or 'no standard'—to each design approach based on four criteria. The criteria are safety and risk management; impact to operations (productivity); metrics from benchmarking; and design philosophy.

"If an idea is found to have no standard, it receives a great deal of scrutiny," says Manula. "No one wants to be the beta tester anymore."

For example, providing site perimeter security would be a safety and risk management issue, but would also effect operations. The project manager would develop three or four ways to provide site perimeter security and evaluate them with a list of pros and cons for each approach. The manager would assign a planning standard to each approach and then share that with the design team.

Manula is putting together a manual of best practice ideas from an inventory across Pfizer's global research and development organization, and evaluating each one to assign planning standards. The manual is a work in progress; Manula hopes to have it completed by the end of the third quarter 2002.

Stunning Research Center Offers Best Practices

In October 1999, Pfizer opened Building 220, an inauspicious name for a spectacular 585,000-sf research building in Groton, Conn., designed by Princeton, N.J.-based architectural firm, CUH2A . Building 220 contains, among other features, 450,000 sf of chemistry and biology laboratory and laboratory support space, a 100,000-sf vivarium, a 20,000-sf atrium, a small coffee bar, conference rooms, a bank, a walk-up window where employees can get their laptops and computers fixed, and a company store.

Extensive post-occupancy reports indicate that the company has succeeded in its three goals for the building, which were to increase productivity, attract and retain the best people, and improve safety.

Among the positive feedback from occupants are several best practices that PGRD hopes to incorporate into future R&D facilities:

Manula says PGRD plans to move the planning and design management project forward by continuing to conduct more extensive post-occupancy studies on new facilities, and to develop metrics to measure productivity and facility performance.

By Lisa Wesel