In 2009 SP Engineering Services were engaged by a large Biotech Fortune 500 Company to manage a critical business relocation of their Irish packaging facility to a newly acquired site. The packaging facility consisted of a Primary Bottle Packaging Line (IMA - SwiftPack), and 5 secondary packaging lines from various vendors most notably, Marchesini and Sovereign labeling systems.
The biggest risk to the client was the fact that this facility was the sole supplier to their European distribution network and once production was stopped there was no backup that could be called upon. With this in mind, inventory was ramped up to provide an operational window of 16 weeks to decommission, relocate, install and validate the full packaging facility into a state of the art, brand new packaging facility of 160,000 sq/ft which still wasn't finished and had in excess of 400 contractors onsite working round the clock to have it ready for us when the time came. With boundaries set, a Project Manager in place, SP Engineering Services went about building a project team that could handle the challenge.
Firstly, clear objectives were defined with the client that would be used to monitor and define the relocation project as a success. Execution to plan, Safety Requirements, Budgetary constraints, Operational Performance to match or exceed the prior 6 months production metrics, training of new operational staff and an intact safety record of zero injuries during execution and a no orders missed due to inventory stock out were the metrics.
Now that objectives and metrics were set, SP Engineering Services implemented a project structure that not only would deliver the project on time, but also be able to provide ongoing process support and operational training once the production lines had been validated and handed over to production, whilst at the same time reducing the "Risk" of failure. For any successful relocation Risk management and implementation strategy, "History" of the equipment is a key factor, with this in mind SP Engineering Services engaged with the key vendors and pulled in their support to provide assistance in decommissioning and reinstallation of the equipment.
The project team was split into 4 sections to cover the staggered shut down and relocation of the equipment. A dedicated team consisting of a Mechanical Engineering Lead, 2 Electrical Technicians, 1 Validation Engineer and 4 vendor Equipment Technicians and a Rigging team was assigned to the Primary packaging Line.
For the 2ndry packaging lines, 2 project teams were created to manage the 5 packaging lines. The first team consisted of an Automation Engineering Lead, 2 Electrical / Mechanical Technicians, 1 validation Engineer and 2 Vendor Equipment Technicians and rigging teams were responsible for Marchesini lines.
The second team consisted of an Electrical Engineering Lead, 1 Validation Engineer, 1 Electrical / Mechanical Technician and 2 Vendor Equipment Technicians and rigging teams were responsible for the Sovereign packaging lines. Finally a Safety Engineer reporting to the Project Manager had responsibility for maintaining and implementing the project safety file ensuring compliance to the Safety regulations.
Having Project Leads with different areas of expertise allowed us to have a cross functional team who could come to each other's assistance and collectively solve issues quickly and efficiently. In addition; custom decommissioning / re-commissioning documentation packs were drawn up by the Engineering teams, hand in hand with the Equipment Vendors to document the disassembly and re-assembly of each line. The execution of these documents became the backbone of the overall project execution plan, provided a documented approach for the Environmental, Health and Safety plan and served as key aspect of the training plan for Electro / Mechanical maintenance technicians and operational staff.
Are you looking for a company who can deliver on your relocation project needs? Please contact SP Engineering Services today to talk to us about your scenario.
