Dow Chemical Company – Project Ascend
The Dow Chemical Company relocated its entire Spring House Technical Center to Collegeville, Pennsylvania. The newly leased space comprised over 800,000 sf across five floors and five buildings. The Collegeville facility was extensively renovated to accommodate a phased relocation and seamless transition of users. Programming meetings and detailed surveys of the existing equipment and laboratories in Spring House were conducted in order to design the required modifications in Collegeville.
Precis served as the lead design professional for this multi-phased, multi-year project, which utilized a design-build approach to accommodate an aggressive, early-phase schedule. The project included the complete gut renovation of the 40,000-sf pilot plant. The pilot plant design included comprehensive architectural and engineering systems design of the waste consolidation, dispensing, pressure cells, carbon black lab, spray dryer, acrylates lab, performance monomers, and plastic additives labs.
Subsequent projects at the Collegeville facility included the complete retrofit of a 125,000-sf office and conference center building, a pharmaceutical coatings research and development (R&D) laboratory suite, a glass-blowing lab, and a flammable cylinder storage space.
The project was named the Best Design-Build Project of the Year in the General Building Contractors Association (GBCA) Construction Excellence Awards.
National Refrigerants, Inc. – New Flammables Packaging and Storage Building
Precis provided architectural and mechanical, electrical, fire protection, plumbing, structural, and civil engineering design services for a packaging and storage building for National Refrigerants (NRI). The new building needed to include approximately 25,000 sf for flammable packaging and approximately 75,000 sf for flammable product storage. The building was designed and constructed to meet hazardous occupancy requirements as dictated by the building code for handling of flammable materials.
Design features included one flammable can line and three flammable packaging lines; outside storage tanks plus additional space for expansion; ISO storage area and storage racking; warehouse and administrative offices and restroom facilities; recovery lab and GCs; foundations for a gas house shed, bulk storage tank, and FT/WT structures; HVAC rooftop units; miscellaneous piping supports between the new building and bulk storage area; fire protection, including on-site fire water storage tank, pump house, riser room, and sprinkler systems; approximately 10 loading docks with doors, bumpers, and dock plates; and stormwater management and erosion and sediment control.
Teva Pharmaceuticals – Distribution Center Campus
Precis completed full mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection (MEP/FP) design for a new pharmaceutical distribution center campus planned for global biopharmaceuticals company, Teva Pharmaceuticals Ltd. The program was spread across three buildings and 136 acres and included a cGMP warehouse, pick and pack distribution center, administrative offices, an information technology data center, and a central utility plant.
Precis provided comprehensive engineering design for a 120-foot high-bay automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS); complete distribution center building systems with complex material handling systems, including pick modules, full case mini-load, broken case mini-load, commissioner, sorter, parcel build stations, launch pack stations, refrigerator pick modules and pack stations, and pallet and carton conveyors; a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) validated security vault, a caged area for storing DEA controlled substances, and a large vendor-supplied refrigerator to store product between 2-8 degrees C. The facility central plant design included a 4,500-ton chilled water plant, a 2,000-HP hot water heating plant and all campus distribution, and a U.S. National Data Center. Design included 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling for detailed analysis of temperature distribution, including modeling of the 120-foot-high ASRS and 40-foot-high distribution areas.
Formic Acid Vapor Bulk Delivery System
Developed as a beta site for larger scale deployment in manufacturing settings, the new Formic Acid Vapor Bulk Delivery System project was developed in collaboration with the client’s process engineers. The project encompassed modifications within an existing research and development (R&D) operations center to create base facilities for the preparation, generation, and distribution of formic acid vapor to process chambers within multiple microchip bonding units. The system initially serves four bonders and is expandable to 11 within the development cleanroom area.
Precis provided architectural and engineering services across all disciplines for design and construction administration. Critical components for service have included initial process reviews of the client’s concepts and collaborative development of system details along with facility support to promote optimal function and user safety.
Additionally, Precis provided design services to the client for complete relocation and fit-out for a new Tier 3 level data center.
Terumo Medical Corporation – FemoSeal Cleanroom Renovation
Precis provided architecture and full mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection (MEP/FP) engineering services to facilitate interior renovations to provide production space for Terumo Medical Corporation’s FemoSealTM vascular closure system. Production operations for this product were being relocated to Elkton, Maryland, from Costa Rica.
The renovations included the addition of an ISO 8 assembly area, an ISO 8 gowning area, and an ISO 8 material airlock, a drying oven and final packaging area, a sterile prep area, siliconization washing, and an analytical lab. The project required strategic re-distribution and re-balancing of existing air-handling systems to maintain production in the adjacent manufacturing suites during construction.
New mechanical systems included a 37,000-CFM custom rooftop dunnage-mounted air-handling unit (AHU) with desiccant wheel dehumidification and associated air distribution to support the low humidity requirement of the manufacturing space, as well as new compressed air drying and heating equipment to support the device assembly process. The siliconization washing space also required a dedicated hazardous exhaust system with lower explosive limit (LEL) monitoring and in-duct sprinkler protection.
Allergan – 4 Millennium Way
Precis provided architecture and engineering design services for a multipurpose facility for Allergan (now part of AbbVie), a pharmaceutical company that develops and manufactures medical devices and brand-name drugs. The facility was designed to support the manufacture of reconstructive tissue products for human health care.
The project involved the fit-out of an existing high-bay, shell building initially designed as a warehouse. The architecture and engineering design was competitively bid directly to the owner prior to development of a conceptual plan. The design team, working closely with the owner, developed a concept layout and basis of design, which were provided to construction management firms to secure bids. The conceptual design effort identified multiple design aspects that were not included in the originally requested facility design.
The project objective was to create new facility areas to consolidate existing operations for research and development (R&D) laboratories, warehouse operations, kitting operations, quality control inspection, office, cafeteria, and facilities support. The fit-out scope was limited to the east half of the 147,500-sf building, encompassing approximately 73,750 sf, with the remaining space designated for future expansion. A new second floor contains a 20,000-sf office space and a 14,000-sf mechanical space. The remaining 73,750 sf received minimal modifications to appropriately maintain the environment until the future buildout can be executed. Utility systems for the two halves of the building were originally designed to support both halves of the facility.
The building design is based on meeting the requirements to receive state funding under the local Economic Development Authority program and to meet minimum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Development (LEED) Silver Certification. Based on value engineering exercises and budgetary constraints, the building requirements were reduced to meet LEED Certified level.
AmerisourceBergen – Warehouse/Distribution Center Campus
Precis designed an approximately 317,520-sf finished warehouse and pharmaceutical distribution center for AmerisourceBergen, contained within a larger 565,320-sf warehouse/distribution facility. The client distributes brand-name, generic, and over-the-counter pharmaceutical and home health products.
The finished portion of the facility is an air-conditioned warehouse and pharmaceutical distribution center with an office component, warehouse, distribution area, utility and support spaces, and tenant material handling equipment, all of which support the tenant’s operations. The remaining portion of the building shell space was later designed by Precis for another client.
The 42-foot high-bay warehouse and distribution center contains pharmaceutical finished products storage with capacity for order picking and packing and distribution of goods. The facility design incorporated automated storage and retrieval systems; 6,000-sf and 1,100-sf refrigerators, both with racking and conveyance systems; a 2,000-sf Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) validated vault and caged area for storing DEA controlled substances with racking and conveyance systems; emergency generator backup for the entire facility; and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for the site data center and server systems.
Grainger – Northeast Distribution Center
Precis provided detailed mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineering design, utilizing BIM modeling and energy modeling, and provided construction administration services for a 1,400,000-sf warehouse and 44,000 sf of office space for Grainger, a Fortune 500 industrial supply company.
The warehouse utilizes a heating and ventilation system with 26 exhaust fans, with four of the exhaust fans on variable frequency drives (VFD) to provide the minimum ventilation, and the other 22 fans staged to limit the temperature increase in the warehouse to 2°F, equivalent to two air changes per hour. The warehouse is heated using 20 direct-fired heating units that run on demand. High-volume, low-speed fans are used throughout the warehouse to increase airflow and de-stratify the space while in heating mode.
Precis evaluated two mechanical systems for the 44,000-sf office: variable air volume (VAV), direct-expansion (DX) gas-fired rooftop units with electric reheat and electric perimeter heat versus fan coil units with a dedicated outdoor air system. All mechanical equipment selections were driven by energy efficiency. The lighting system in the office and warehouse uses high efficiency LED lighting with integral motion and daylight sensors.
Precis Engineering worked directly with the project owner and architect to evaluate all energy saving options for the building façade and roof insulation. Precis collaborated with an environmental engineer to evaluate the risk of heat stress and strain on all employees in the heated and ventilated warehouse. The highest risk areas were designed
with mechanical cooling systems, while in other areas, the addition of air movement was used to reduce the risk at workstations. The project was awarded LEED Gold Certification.
Decarbonization Site Audits
Precis performed a decarbonization study of four of the client’s 15 highest carbon-generating sites. These sites consisted of pharmaceutical manufacturing, laboratories, warehouses, offices, and central utility plants comprising of over 3.1 million sf of occupiable space.
Precis performed detailed energy analyses to help the company achieve its decarbonization goals, with measures specifically tailored for decarbonization including renewable energy generation, electrification, and thermal energy/battery storage. Precis evaluated all energy-consuming systems at each facility including water-cooled HVAC chilled water systems; process chilled water systems; high- and low-pressure steam boiler systems; central cogeneration facility; air-handling systems for manufacturing, laboratory, and office spaces; exhaust systems; clean utilities including water for injection (WFI) and clean steam; compressed air; and lighting.
Precis identified over 375 viable opportunities across the four campuses with annual cost savings opportunities across all facilities totaling over $4.4 million. This resulted in a nearly 40 percent carbon reduction at the sites with the greatest opportunity. Strategic recommendations were made at each site to eliminate Scope 1 emissions in their entirety. Detailed energy savings calculations, cost estimates, payback analysis, and narrative to support a business case for implementing over 103 projects were also provided. Following the study, the client engaged Precis for the design of several opportunities relating to cogeneration feasibility, chilled water optimization, and boiler replacement.
MilliporeSigma – Regional Distribution Center Expansion
Life sciences products company, MilliporeSigma aimed to create a strategic regional distribution center by significantly expanding its existing distribution center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to occupy a vacant parcel of land adjacent to the building.
The larger, optimized distribution space was designed to store a variety of chemical and medical devices, adhering to Good Distribution Practice (GDP) standards. Various storage conditions were required, including cooler, freezer, controlled ambient, ambient, and flammable areas. The chemical warehouse was designed to store many different chemicals and hazard classes in both large and small packaging configurations.
Precis provided mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection engineering design to support the MEP/FP construction and installation needs. Precis worked closely with HSC Builders & Construction Managers, MilliporeSigma, architectural, structural, and civil engineering personnel to provide engineering, design, and construction administration services.
Image © Raymond Forbes
