New Approach Allows Continuous Improvement on Top of a Solid Foundation
In the last few years Pfizer has undergone a period of extremely rapid growth resulting from the commercial success of products including Viagra, Lipitor, and Celebrex. This aggressive growth strategy, enabled through mergers and acquisitions, was designed to achieve the scale required to gain synergies, invest in costly technologies, and spread the enormous risk of the drug development process. Yet size can itself become an impediment to the agility and flexibility which are critical to lasting business success. Retaining these characteristics can be a serious challenge for successful companies. Global Operations, within the R&D division of Pfizer Inc., has responded to this challenge by building a foundation for the future based on best practices from the companies of which it is now comprised.

SNAP Drastically Reduces Cycle Time
Job managers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) are completing small construction work orders in a shorter amount of time by streamlining the way they conduct business with construction subcontractors.

Worldwide Facilities Group Leverages Technology to Increase Efficiency
General Motors Corp. (GM) of Detroit, has generated significant cost savings by streamlining space management across the company's domestic manufacturing and non-manufacturing operations within the Worldwide Facilities Group (WFG). Within WFG, the Facilities Management (FM) organization has made recent efficiency improvements by merging several space management groups into a single Space Management team. In addition to streamlining management groups within Space Management, the FM team has improved operational efficiency by deploying a large-scale computer aided facilities management (CAFM) system. FM personnel leverage this integrated system, along with other technology tools such as handheld devices, to provide comprehensive space management services for all 190 million sf of GM's domestic facilities.

Provides Insight on Best Practices in Design, Operations, and Training
According to Tony Della-Porta, Ph.D., an independent biosecurity and biocontainment consultant based in Australia, recent SARS-Coronavirus infections within laboratories should dramatically underscore the need for safer operations, improved standards, and better staff training. The SARS virus is just one example of the many potentially deadly infectious agents handled by BSL-3 and BSL-4 laboratories.

Washington University
The $32-million facility was designed and built as a result of a complete collaboration between the design team and the Department Chair, Frank C.P. Yin, M.D., Ph.D., pre-eminent scholar and research scientist. This is the first facility on the East Campus that allows for the future migration of all the engineering disciplines at Washington University.

Baylor University
The Baylor Sciences Building is a new multidisciplinary sciences facility that stands as a milestone in science education. This innovative facility will unite under one roof the foundational sciences and multidisciplinary centers giving Baylor University an unprecedented environment for equipping students to be leaders in solving future scientific challenges.