Q:
How do you move equipment, and supporting technology to a new Corporate Headquarters, without compromising critical experiments?
A:
By understanding the sensitive issues and finding the right specialists.
Challenge:
Shire’s move of 17 departments, 200 lab and general employees, countless critical experiments, (some in freezers or refrigeration units), from 3 sites, offered some challenges even we hadn’t encountered previously.
Strategy:
Most scientific operations want to complete their experiments before a move, but Shire didn’t have that luxury. Its experiments were time sensitive and couldn’t be shut down. Many of these vital experiments required refrigeration and freezing within specific temperature ranges. We worked with management to build a fail-safe move strategy that allowed for every contingency. We negotiated with specialist vendors to handle sensitive experiments including: chemical movers, riggers, decontamination experts, and furniture installers. Then we communicated continuously with lab personnel, and tenaciously controlled every step of the move swiftly, smoothly, and with a minimum of disruption.
Results:
We worked with Shire over a 5-month period to plan their move to the nth detail. Then we managed the move of critical experiments in a 24-hour window, saved them $120,000 through vendor and furniture efficiencies (completely offsetting our fees), and we didn’t compromise a single experiment. We continue to work with Shire on specific projects and during peak demand.
formally Transkaryotic Therapies