Baxter FOY Presentation

The presentation topic for the ISPE meeting last Thursday night was the winning entry for last Year’s Facility of the Year competition, which was the Baxter project…

It looked like it was going to be a well-attended meeting due to the interest in the modular construction presentation topic…

I arrived early at the Holiday Inn…the traffic in North Jersey is such that if you want to get there at all, you have to get there early…I wandered around, admiring the nice collection of Beaux Arts architectural prints on the walls…everybody else was on their cell phone…

I had a bit of a chat with Mr. Inoue….see link to that post here…Mr. Inoue also noted that modular construction techniques were difficult implement in Japan due to over-the-road restrictions on module sizes, especially height. He indicated that the technique had been successfully used in remote areas that did not have similar restrictions.

I spent some time talking to some people from T+M Engineering…They are currently working on a pre-cast project in Northern NJ. In keeping with the theme of the evening, we all agreed that the construction speed of a pre-cast structure was something to be seen…

Conversations broke up when it was time for dinner to be served…given the crowd, it was difficult to find a seat… I tried to find a table with an open place to sit but it turned out to be like little kids playing musical chairs, and I wound up losing my seat while I was in the buffet line anyway…of course, by then, all of the other seats were taken… I eventually found a seat when they got more tables in place…Obviously, they weren’t keeping track of how many people were coming in the door as compared to how many places were set… other than that, dinner was fine…

When the presentation started, Mr. Signore of IPS made a brief introduction…

Mr. Ulrich Rudow, Vice President of World Wide Engineering & Real Estate for J+J provided a discussion regarding the judging process used in the competition…I think this was the most interesting part of the presentation, particularly if you are interested in submitting a project for consideration in future competitions.

I think he indicated there were 30 applications the first year and 50 this past year…Mr. Rudow joked about how many times he read about “world class”, fast-track”, and “best-in-class”…

He indicated the judges were looking for the “Ah hah” factor, or the “why didn’t I think of that?” type of reaction…

During the judging process, project applications were eliminated due to wrong data or data that was not internally consistent through out the presentation. Projects with only vague information also got the boot, or if the judges felt information was being concealed. Another important criterion was that the facility needed to be “ready to make product” and completely validated. He discussed issues involved in maintaining impartiality during the judging process and efforts to avoid any conflict of interest during the review process…

He indicated that size was not the determining factor in selecting the finalists, and pointed to the spectrum of project sizes among the five finalists as an example of other criteria being more important.

During the final judging, Mr. Rudow indicated that a point system was used to score the various entries and that he found that the judges all arrived at the same conclusions and had developed a solid consensus by the 3rd round of judging….

I thought it interesting that Mr. Rudow noted that we all provide engineering in pretty much the same way and only “tiny little differences” were all that ultimately separated the various entries…

Mr. Rudow concluded his remarks by noting that the judging effort was a lot of work and a lot of fun…


At this point the presentation was tuned over to Mr. Gordon Leichter of the Pharmadule, Inc.

Mr. Leichter presented briefly presented the five finalists and presented the winning entry in more detail…

The FOY Competition evaluates project entries against the following criteria:

- safety,
- significant contribution to industry,
- unique and innovative approaches
- quality
- project management techniques


The Baxter Project combined modular stick-built construction techniques with new construction of an addition and renovation of an existing structure.

Mr. Leichter indicated that a critical part of the project success was that the client had prior experience with modular construction with Pharmadule and understood the process of working within the requirements of this approach…

Mr. Leichter made a very interesting presentation, which included a lot of good pictures of the actual construction of both the module fabrication and field construction activities.…

The modular approach allowed site preparation activities to be undertaken while modules were being fabricated off-site…so far off-site, it was fabricated in another country…that’s off-site…

Modular construction does seem to go very quickly in the field. Mr. Leichter indicated that 6 modules were placed per day with the project being comprised of 62 total modules arranged in a three story layout…Overall module size was 14’-6” x 14’-6” x 45’ long, and this size was determined by over-the-road transportation restrictions…I found it interesting that Pharmadule also validated the facility as part of their project scope.

It appeared that more than one full year of conceptual and preliminary design time was not included in the reported project schedule for the competition… assuming I understood the presentation correctly…I am very surprised the judging committee did not focus on this issue more closely…

A young lady asked an interesting question regarding at what point in the project did the decision to apply to the FOY take place…I was also wondering if you start out the project with this as a goal in mind, or if you wind up realizing you have a candidate project after the fact…I didn’t quite follow Mr. Leichter’s answer…

Various other questions came up around other issues involved in modular approach to project execution and the trend toward this approach…Mr. Leichter indicated that modular execution would be a paradigm shift for most project teams…

It was noted that equipment layout must be coordinated with module layout in this construction technique…particularly for larger equipment like autoclaves or lyophilizers, and spread out equipment like the filling line set-ups …

The obvious question regarding cost premium came up and Mr. Leichter indicated it was quite a common question. He was understandably reluctant to quote an exact figure but indicated that a 10-15% premium could be expected after the completion of a conceptual layout.

Other issues came up regarding risk associated with this approach to project execution… Reaction at my table was that the risks involved in this type of approach were not discussed or addressed as part of the presentation.

In looking at the brochure material handed out as part of the presentation, there were more projects executed in this manner that I would have thought, although I am not sure how many have been successfully completed in the U.S…most seemed to be located in Europe.

Reaction from the audience indicated that most everyone felt it was an interesting presentation…

Clearly more answers to specific questions are needed to completely evaluate the modular approach to capital project execution…more than can be raised at a dinner meeting sales presentation… and more than can be covered here…

An interesting topic, which I am sure will be discussed in much more detail in the future…I am also sure other projects are being considered for execution in this manner and we should follow the progress of these projects carefully for more information.

Obviously, modular construction is a growing trend and is attracting a lot of interest, even if you only judge based on the size of the crowd in attendance…

More information can be found at the Pharmadule website at www.pharmadule.com