How You Can Successfully Bid on Lab Design Projects
Not sure if you can take on a laboratory design project? You can when you work with the right partner – Formaspace. As a leading American-made laboratory furniture manufacturer, we can help you leverage your interior design vision, knowledge, and experience to successfully bid on sophisticated lab projects. We’ll provide the project management and manufacturing know-how to make your project a success – from start to finish – and every step in-between.
Read on to find out how you can successfully bid on and manage lab design projects or contact us today to start your lab design project.
Case Study: New Innovation Center with Five Unique Laboratory Facilities
PROJECT SCOPE DETAILS
| Architect / Furniture Dealer | Stantec & Creative Office Pavilion (COP) |
| END USER | Large Medical Device Manufacturer |
| PROJECT SIZE | 5 laboratories in a new 29,800 sq ft facility |
| Budget | Lab furniture budget: $0.5 Million. Overall facility budget: $17 Million. |
| Products | Stainless Steel Casework, Chemical Resistant Lab Benches, ESD Lab Benches, Cabinetry (Fixed & mobile, various materials), Fume Hoods, Safety Showers, etc. |
Have you thought about taking on laboratory design projects before but didn’t know how to get started? The answer is to turn to a lab furniture manufacturing expert – Formaspace – that can help you manage the technical complexities of the project while allowing you to do what you best — design innovative modern work environments.
The idea is appealing, but how does it work in practice? Let’s step through a recent Formaspace project – a new $17 million innovation center built for a leading medical device manufacturer known for inventing the world’s smallest FDA approved heart pump – to find out.*
The new 29,800 ft.² center in Danvers, Massachusetts features five new laboratories, including blood, optical, software, mechanical, and electrical labs – all equipped with custom-made Formaspace lab furniture. In addition to the research labs, the new facility also incorporates a new medical device manufacturing line, plus a cutting-edge heart recovery clinical training facility.
*We can’t use the name of client company so key identifying details have been omitted.
Decision Making: Work Smarter With Experienced Furniture Manufacturing Partners
During the project planning stage, the client recognized that its new innovation center required careful planning and furniture manufacturer selection to avoid unwanted delays or other unexpected problems. Of particular concern was the build-out of the five different laboratories (blood, optical, software, mechanical, and electrical), each of which had its own specific functional requirements.
Project managers believed that assigning a different furniture vendor to each of the laboratories would create unnecessary complications in the project planning and build process. So instead, they turned to Formaspace to take on the building of the custom furniture for each of the five new laboratories as well as the responsibility for sourcing the necessary lab equipment, such as fume hoods, acid cabinets, safety showers and more.
The client had confidence in Formaspace for three reasons:
- first, we have a long-standing working relationship, having built other laboratory projects for them in the past;
- second, we have the necessary design and manufacturing capability here at our headquarters in Austin, Texas, to take on a wide range of large, highly technical laboratory projects;
- and third, having one vendor responsible for all the laboratory furniture and equipment – with a single point of contact – simplified the client’s project planning process considerably.
Solution: Formaspace Partners with Furniture Dealer Creative Office Pavilion (COP ) to Create a Total Solution
For the office furnishings used in the new innovation center, the client’s project managers selected another company that they have had a long-term business relationship with, Creative Office Pavilion (COP), a Herman Miller dealer based in New York. Under the able leadership of COP, the new innovation center’s administrative departments, reception areas, conference rooms, etc. were kitted out with new Herman Miller office furniture.
Working together with COP, we were able to deliver exactly what the client was looking for, thanks to a streamlined communication process among a small number of very experienced, pro-active vendors who worked together in close partnership to get the job done right the first time around.
RESULTS:
Stock Designs Don’t Always Fit. Get Exactly What You Need from a Custom Lab Furniture Manufacturer.
For the new innovation center, Formaspace manufactured new custom casework, ESD lab benches, chemically resistant lab benches, here at our factory headquarters in Austin, Texas. (We also supplied the cabinetry, fume hoods, and safety showers and more.) Let’s take a look in more detail at some of the unique custom features of the furniture we built for each of the new innovation center’s laboratories.
Tour the Five Laboratories at the Medical Device Manufacturer’s New Innovation Center
24-Ft Seamless Stainless Steel Casework Installation in Blood Laboratory
Given the sensitive nature of working with medical devices (heart pumps in this case), the working surfaces of the furniture destined for the blood laboratory needed to eliminate physical joints or other areas that would be difficult to sterilize. As a result, we built a 24-foot long casework assembly with a one single seamless stainless steel surface. Due to its immense length, a portion of the partition wall in the lab needed to be temporarily removed to allow access during the final on-site installation.
Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) & SEM Prep Laboratories
To ensure quality during the medical device manufacturing stage, as well as to provide support for new product development, the new SEM laboratories feature high-power magnification capabilities that give product developers and quality inspectors the ability to peer deep inside devices. Given the high investment cost of equipment and its relative sensitivity, the custom Benchmarx™ workstation made by Formaspace provides a stable foundation that prevents excessive vibration and helps protect the SEM equipment investment.
Software Testing Laboratory
In addition to developing and manufacturing sophisticated medical devices, the client also produces sophisticated software to accompany their products. These software products include tools to test and calibrate medical devices, as well as apps that can assist nurses, perfusionists, and physicians working in catheterization labs, intensive care units, or operating rooms, with vital information on the client’s product use and performance.
The new tech lab allows quality assurance specialists to perform rigorous testing on all software applications.
Electrical Device Testing Laboratory
One of the largest laboratories at the new innovation center is the electrical device testing laboratory, which features a combination of 35 lab benches, each of which comes equipped with built-in ESD electronic discharge prevention measures that help prevent accidental destruction of highly sensitive electronic equipment from unwanted static discharge.
Shared Equipment Labs
To ensure safety, the new innovation lab provides a separate area for laboratory functions that require working with materials that have the potential to be flammable or to emit toxic fumes. This area, which is shared among the different laboratories, includes 24 lab benches with built-in casework, fume hoods, safety showers, and safety cabinets for flammable materials.
The new tech lab allows quality assurance specialists to perform rigorous testing on all software applications.
Delivering the Goods On Time and On Budget: Choose American-Made Furniture for Higher-Quality and Faster Turnaround & Installation
The project planners in charge of the new innovation center wanted to find a vendor who could provide high-quality furniture that was versatile, resilient, and long-lasting.
They were also looking for a laboratory furniture manufacturer who was dealer-friendly and could work as a team player while reducing the number of points of contact necessary to accomplish the project goals.
The fact that all of Formaspace’s products are designed and manufactured in the USA here at our Austin, Texas factory headquarters helped simplify the project management process immeasurably. We were able to provide a one-stop shop for all their laboratory needs, not only by manufacturing custom laboratory furniture, but also serving as a resource to take responsibility for ordering other ancillary lab equipment, which greatly simplified the project planning demands placed on the client’s team.
There are other advantages to specifying American-made products as well. Because we source our steel and other materials here in the USA, we know our suppliers and can guarantee the exceptional high-quality of the materials that go into our finished products.
Unlike overseas vendors from Europe or China, our products can be shipped quickly. We not only promise 100% on-time production, we offer rapid delivery to anywhere across the country.
Professional on-site installation services are also part of our offering. In the case of the innovation center, Formaspace was able to work closely with COP to install the lab furnishings in just two visits – the first for the casework installation, and the second to deliver and install the lab benches.
Formaspace is Your Laboratory Furniture Partner
We hope this laboratory case study has helped you consider the possibilities of working on highly-technical interior design projects.
We are here to help.
Whether you are working with a client who wants to build a new laboratory or a remodel an existing facility, Formaspace is your laboratory partner. We can provide essential design expertise, exceptional on-time manufacturing capabilities, as well as management services (including sourcing all the necessary lab and safety equipment required for your project.) We can also provide full-service, on-site installations.
If you can imagine it, we can build it, right here at our factory headquarters located in Austin, Texas.
We’ve been building top-quality laboratory and industrial furniture for the top name clients since 1981. You’ll be interested to note that three out of four of our corporate clients are listed on the Fortune 500 and that we also count over 350 colleges and universities, including most of the Ivy League schools, among our satisfied customers.
Want to find out more? We are ready to assist. Contact your local Formaspace Design Consultant today.