Rouge Plant Drives Auto Manufacturing into Next Century
Ford Motor Company, of Detroit, recently opened the doors on a $2-billion brownfield renovation of its historic Rouge manufacturing facility in Dearborn, Mich. The landmark project signifies a new era of environmentally sustainable manufacturing for Ford. In addition to housing the world's most advanced automated truck production plant, the renovated site also features unique green design elements including the world's largest living roof, the nation's first Gold LEED™-rated building under the new LEED certification criteria, and a certified wildlife habitat.

Processes Cut Planning Time and Save Millions of Dollars
Recognizing that facilities costs are second only to employee costs, Corning Incorporated has centralized real estate management as a corporate function, and aligned it with the Business Services Division. Integral to this initiative, a computer aided facilities management (CAFM) software application was implemented to centralize all Corning Real Estate (CRE) information. Corning also realized the potential of utilizing CAFM technology for detailed space planning and management. This integrated space management functionality has helped Corning reduce planning time by up to 70 percent and support data analysis that resulted in saving $3 million per year in operating costs, just by idling a building that wasn't fully utilized.

Up-Front Planning Critical to Success
Biogen Idec Inc. began a journey of constructing new manufacturing and research facilities five years ago with the creation of a plan as meticulous as the work performed by the biopharmaceutical company.

University of Michigan
The Life Sciences Institute at the University of Michigan is designed to be a collaboration hub for the disciplines of genetics, physiology, molecular and cellular biology, chemistry, mathematics, and engineering. The 235,000-sf building transforms an under-developed area of the campus and helps to connect the University's medical center with other science programs located in the center of the campus.

Central Michigan University
The 172,000-sf, $50 million Health Professions Building at Central Michigan University is considered one of the most technologically advanced teaching facilities in the country. The building is designed to serve as an experimental lab to accelerate learning and educational solutions, an incubator for new ideas focused on developing authentic student-centered education, a portal for creating customized educational experiences, and a test bed for evaluating and analyzing the effectiveness of learning strategies and space designs.

Diverse Stakeholders Come Together to Address Energy Consumption, Sustainability
The University of California (UC) system has a new, system-wide set of policies for energy conservation and environmental sustainability. The new "Green Building and Clean Energy Policy" is the result of an 18-month planning process that saw an unusual degree of cooperation among university administration, faculty, and students. The policy, which tightens building design standards and includes ambitious but attainable goals for "green energy" production and purchasing, was approved by the UC president in June 2004 and went into effect on July 1st.