The Austin Company have under taken a number of projects and studies over the last 13 years for 3M in order to expand and upgrade their major Production, & Pharmaceutical Development site. Some of these projects included:
Pharmaceutics Pilot Plant Upgrade
This project provided 3M with the opportunity to fulfill a strategic decision to remodel the interior of their Pharmaceutics Pilot Plant Building, while allowing production to be maintained without disruption
The resultant design was developed in phases to allow the site work to be undertaken with limited impact on the existing production activities. The new facility comprises Class 10,000 and 100,000 areas’s being a mix of both positive pressure rooms and negative containment rooms.
The installation of a temporary change area and airlocks, allowed production to be maintained in a safe cGMP environment whilst the upgrade works continued around them. This included the creation of a plant room above the clean room ceilings.
The upgrade provided a new process facility complying with current GMP recommendations and Good Engineering Practice, together with:
- A suite of clean rooms, clean corridors and material and personnel change areas.
- Improved temperature control for operations
- Improved quarantine storage space
- Improved segregation of materials and equipment
Austin provided full design service commencing with Concept through to Detail design, project planning, project management, CDMc Coordinator and on site supervision to coordinate, inspect and validate the construction and services work.
Single European Manufacturing & Distribution Facility
Austin were appointed to provide a new 10,000 sq.m Manufacturing Facility, to centralise 3M’s European operations on one site at Loughborough.
The new facility incorporates clean rooms for liquid, creams production and packaging areas together with solid dose packaging lines. In addition a 6,000 pallet narrow aisle warehouse and low bay warehouse were part of this Project.
The building also accommodates distribution support offices, a marshalling area, flammable liquids storage with picking and packing areas in the low bay area.
Existing lines were upgraded and vessels relocated to the new single facility whilst maintaining production throughout.
During the course of the work the existing Aerosol Packaging Areas were remodelled, placing great emphasis on safe working, and special precautions were taken to minimise the impact of the construction work on the adjacent clean room areas.
Austin provided preliminary engineering, detailed engineering, procurement, project management and construction services.
Process services and clean rooms were commissioned, qualified and validated to meet FDA requirements.
Austin was invited to design and construct a new 7,000m² IPS building that met regulatory compliance as part of a coordinated site vision and master plan study. This entailed the design of a fully automated storage and retrieval system for a range of product types. Office functions had to be accommodated on the second floor within pharmaceutical and analytical PR&D.
Balkanpharma, the largest pharmaceutical manufacturer in Bulgaria needed to increase production capacity by three million tablets per year with the construction of a new facility on an existing site in Dupnitza.