CREATING a Grade C cleanroom and sterile testing facility while ensuring it is business as usual elsewhere in the manufacturing building is the latest challenge overcome by consulting engineers Services Design Partnership.

The Wakefield based consultants specialise in high quality complex mechanical and electrical (M&E) fittings in particular for the pharmaceutical, healthcare, R&D and food production industries where exceptional levels of hygiene and, in some cases, sterility are crucial.

They have a long history of working with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) so when the global pharmaceutical giant set about a major update to their production facilities at Barnard Castle, Services Design Partnership (SDP) were called upon to provide M&E input.

Their most recent involvement was in the creation of a Grade C cleanroom and Sterility Testing Isolation for testing samples from the sterile manufacturing lines. SDP Director Chris Armistead was the director in charge of the project which saw SDP designing the M&E aspects to the cleanroom including the latest energy efficient technologies in Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems to provide safety, sterility and comfort while helping to meet GSK’s environmental aspirations.  

Chris said: “It was a 15 month project from start to finish design and involved collaborating with a number of international contractors and suppliers. The cleanroom was constructed in the middle of a building where manufacturing was still ongoing so it was critical that work was staged and carried out without impacting detrimentally on production.

“Added challenges involved a complex sterilisation system and VHP monitoring.”