Ci provided the architectural design for Insulet Corporation’s 380,000 square foot world headquarters and cGMP manufacturing facility in Acton, Massachusetts. We recently conducted a case study on the project to share how we approached the design. Read on to learn more.
CASE STUDY: ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN FOR INSULET CGMP MANUFACTURING FACILITY AND CORPORATE OFFICES
NOVEMBER 16, 2020
THE PROJECT
Ci Design recently completed Insulet Corporation’s corporate headquarters, which encompassed 380,000 SF and included large scale office space and a clean integrated assembly manufacturing facility.
Insulet is a medical device company that is known for its Omnipod Insulin Management System, a wearable system which provides up to three days of non-stop insulin delivery.
LOCATION - ACTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Insulet acquired the abandoned former headquarters of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in Acton, MA. The property sits on hilly topography in the center of the triangular area between Route 2A and Route 27, near the Littleton off ramp from I-495.
EXPANSION
Ci designed 180,000 SF of new ground-up construction to accommodate the program requirements, of which 80,000 SF met ISO 8 clean room standards for manufacturing. The expansion included:
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Humidification system
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Specialty power and utilities
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Biosafety Level 2 (BSL-2) labs with hazard waste storage and disposal systems
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R&D engineering labs with rapid pilot prototyping and manufacturing area
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ISO 8 clean rooms for R&D labs
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Microelectronic labs
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Machine shop
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Primary production lines for assembly, integration, and manufacturing of Omnipods
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Automated finished goods packaging system
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Packaging rooms
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Quality Assurance lab
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Microbiology lab
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Flexible pilot line with gowning
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Product quarantine space
PARKING
Ci designed a new four-level parking garage for over 600 Insulet employees and contractors. The hilly topography around the facility necessitated building a section of the garage in the inset of a hill. Ci also created a traffic-flow pattern to improve vehicle and pedestrian safety near the Insulet campus.
TECHNOLOGY
To minimize environmental impact, the entire expansion was designed to 2N+1 standards for all of its hardware and automation systems, with parallel data backups and full fault-tolerance redundancies across the facility’s core technology components. The facility was also designed to keep vibration tolerances below 0.25 inches, and utilizes GPS-controlled automated material-handling systems from AIV.
NEXT PROJECT
DESIGN CHALLENGES
Insulet wanted a U.S.-based manufacturing facility to supplement its capacity in China and to build redundancy throughout its global supply chain.
The company needed to optimize its manufacturing efficiency for higher-volume/high-speed production without quality loss, while still maintaining minimal environmental impact from the facility. Automation was also deemed especially important for quality control.
The design and construction of the new facility needed to occur alongide Insulet’s R&D and production personnel, who were tasked with designing and deploying new automated production lines while the project was underway.
Finally, Insulet wanted the ability to expand its facility in the future as the business grows.
APPROACH
Ci was selected to transform an abandoned facility into a fully automated manufacturing facility on an 18-month timeline while ensuring complex equipment requirements were met. This afforded minimal room for error on the project.
During the renovation and expansion project, Ci provided master-planning, architectural and interior design, brand and environmental graphics, and landscape design. Ci also partnered with MEP/FP, civil, geotechnical, and hydrogeology engineering teams to complete the project.
RENOVATION
The first phase involved a complete renovation of the original 208,000 SF building. This began the facility’s transformation into a multipurpose manufacturing headquarters that included:
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Corporate offices
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Open shared workspaces with scrum, bench, and cube-style seating
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Conference rooms
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Fitness center and locker rooms
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Full-service cafeteria
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Breakrooms
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R&D facilities
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Call center
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Post-market research/QC area
After cataloging and programming the different required spaces, Ci developed furniture, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E) standards to accompany each use. In the varying office types, for example, user input dictated the desk configuration and amount of work surface and storage needed. Insulet will follow this template for its future office growth requirements.
RESULTS
MODERN & SOPHISTICATED FACILITY
The Insulet headquarters and manufacturing facility, at 380,000 square feet, is not only one of the area’s largest by footprint, but it is also one of the most technologically advanced and aesthetically pleasing. Ci’s design incorporated sleek elements that invoked the rounded contours and predominantly polished white color scheme of Insulet’s flagship product. The fresh look provided an opportunity for new branding as well as a psychological boost for company employees, who can now operate out of one of the region’s most modern facilities.
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Insulet’s new facility allows the company to more than double its annual production volume of 20 million pods already produced overseas.
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Insulet’s domestic manufacturing facility allows the company to maintain production levels, even during events that disrupt the supply chain, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
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This facility expansion, as well as Insulet’s job growth, investments, and community involvement, awarded them the 16th Annual MassEcon Impact Gold Award.
LONG-TERM VALUE
Insulet’s new headquarters facility and its fully automated manufacturing plant in Acton provide redundancy, risk mitigation, and additional capacity. This world-class facility will play a key role in Insulet’s innovation strategy as the company continues to expand globally.