Accelerating Delivery: How Data Center Strategies Can Transform Pharma Projects

Through early involvement, both design and contracting partners can leverage not only their technical skills, but also their business knowledge to ensure projects have a strong foundation for project execution. This expertise can include engaging local and national trade input for labor availability, better understanding of local utility capacities (including lead times and permitting processes), and better understanding the supply chain to provide more accurate project timelines.

“DPR leverages lessons learned across its hyperscale and colocation data center projects to help customers make faster, smarter decisions. We know there’s a very long lead time for critical-path equipment like switchgear, generators, and cooling systems,” Arcello said. “That’s why we advise owners to lock in those orders as early as possible—even if the design is still evolving. We can manage design to meet the equipment available if necessary. Securing factory space upfront helps contribute to on time delivery. If speed-to-market is the business driver, securing long-lead items early is one of the most important steps to hitting schedule.”

This is an approach that biopharmaceutical manufacturers can adopt for their cGMP projects. Early engagement alone is not enough, however. Another area data center owners have excelled at is empowering teams to make decisions for the areas they control.

“We know these are complex projects with more stakeholders than ever,” Kirkpatrick said. “One general difference between data center and biopharmaceutical construction is that, in the data center world, procurement groups have relied on different stakeholder groups to make the dollar decisions their groups used to control. It’s a bit of a leap, but by aligning groups within a set of guardrails and intended outcomes, decision making becomes much more efficient, keeping the project on track.”

There are many examples on life sciences campuses where deep relationships with general and trade contractors who know the specifics of site procedures can execute smaller site projects with high efficiency. Scaling that model can increase productivity and safety – especially in critical or operational facilities.

“All data center customers with rolling programs have built a group of contractors they can reliably turn to, at a pace that matches their growth plans,” Arcello said. “They’re building in several locations simultaneously and encouraging their partners to share what’s making them successful. That’s a paradigm shift—it helps everyone learn and improve, which results in consistent, high-quality delivery at a speed that wasn’t possible even five years ago."

Beyond contractors, trusted design and engineering partners also play a critical role in accelerating delivery. DPR integrates internal strategic partners like GPLA and its family of companies early in the process to surface design efficiencies, identify prefabrication opportunities, provide peer review, and apply lessons learned from other projects. By closing gaps between design intent and construction, these partners help eliminate rework and unlock additional speed-to-market advantages like prefabrication.

“Prefabrication, especially of components like exterior panels, can enable faster schedules and dry in,” Kirkpatrick said. “For facilities that require cleanroom environments for production, faster dry-in can lead to accelerated building interior fitout timelines. In this sense, prefabrication moves from being simply a construction method to a business advantage.”

Rather than relying solely on other companies for different scopes of work, self-perform means that the general contractor—and therefore owner—are in control of scheduling crews and the most critical scopes. Teams can coordinate across trades and solve problems together. Having control over a project’s onsite workforce and execution of work also ensures greater certainty over key success factors: quality, safety, cost and schedule.

“When I look at the biopharmaceutical projects we build, I see incredibly complex facilities where every piece has to work,” Kirkpatrick said. “There’s not only the need for skilled craftspeople, but also for workers in the trades who know how their scope integrates with the other trades for a cGMP facility. Their experience culminates into decades of creative problem solving to mitigate risk. Coupled with a clear understanding of an owner’s goals and commitment to succeed, that translates to innovative solutions tailored for the project at hand that keeps things on or even ahead of schedule.”

Workers in the field are further supported by robust virtual design and construction programs. Fully leveraging VDC to inform schedule and surface potential issues on the screen before they pop up in the field may seem like a best practice, but is still too often treated as an extra. Additionally, a strong understanding of cGMP documentation requirements by GCs and trades is essential for smooth startup, commissioning, and validation

“You think about the miles of conduit and ductwork in a data center, is it really that different than the tens of thousands of feet of hygienic piping we see in a cGMP facility?” Kirkpatrick asked. “Those are building elements that, if something is installed incorrectly, it can create a cascading series of issues to address. If speed to market is a priority, that’s a controllable factor.”