State-of-practice in the design and construction of flexible facilities

Time-to-market demands frequently drive construction and retrofitting of facilities in the manufacturing and life sciences industry. Thus, using traditional design-bid-build delivery after a product, such as a new microprocessor or pharmaceutical, is fully developed is rarely a viable economic option. In many cases, this means designing and constructing a facility without knowing the full functional requirements of the building or having complete knowledge of the manufacturing processes that the facility will house. One solution to this challenge is the concept of a flexible facility, where specific building components or systems are generalized and decoupled from one another to expedite delivery. This paper, as part of a larger research effort by the Construction Industry Institute (CII), presents the findings of an extensive literature review to define the state-of-the-practice in delivering flexible facilities. Our review concludes that flexible facilities are a domain-spanning area of research that can benefit from work in industrial engineering, as well as construction management. Specifically, the principles underlying flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), concurrent engineering, and modularization directly impact the goals of flexible facility development. This information creates a point of departure and direction for future research to explore new, more holistic methodologies for identifying areas of flexibility in facility delivery.