When Architects and Capacity Planners Work Together

When a pharmaceutical company decides to build a new manufacturing facility, they typically start with demand projections and strategic goals. They bring in architects and engineering firms to translate those goals into physical space: cleanrooms, production suites, utility corridors, warehouse footprints.

But there's a critical gap in this traditional approach. Architects design spaces to house equipment. Yet the fundamental question — what equipment is actually needed, and how much of it — often gets answered too late in the process.

This is where capacity planning and facility design need to work together from the start.

The Traditional Disconnect

In a typical pharma facility project, the sequence looks something like this:

1. Leadership defines production goals (e.g., "We need to produce 50 million tablets per year")

2. Architects design the building shell and room layouts

3. Equipment vendors are consulted for specs and quotes

4. Engineering firms figure out how to fit everything together

5. Reality sets in: the designed spaces don't quite match actual requirements

By the time detailed capacity analysis happens — if it happens at all — the building footprint is already locked. Room dimensions are set. Utility runs are planned. Making significant changes becomes expensive and time-consuming.

The result is facilities that are either oversized (wasted capital) or undersized (future constraints) because the fundamental capacity math wasn't done early enough.

What Architects Actually Need

A leading pharma facility architect we work with described the challenge perfectly: "My clients tell me they want to make X units of product. But that's not enough information to design a facility."

To design an effective pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, architects need to know:

• Equipment quantities: Not just types, but exact counts. One tablet press or three? Two blister lines or four?
• Equipment footprints: Physical dimensions including service access, material flow, and operator space
• Process flow logic: How materials move from receiving through production to packaging
• Utility requirements: Power, water, HVAC, compressed air — all driven by equipment selections
• Future expansion scenarios: Which areas need room to grow, and by how much

The challenge is that these answers depend on capacity analysis: understanding production requirements at a granular level, accounting for changeover times, OEE realities, shift patterns, and demand variability.

Simulation-Driven Facility Planning

This is where simulation changes the game.

Before the first architectural drawing is made, we can model the proposed operation:

Step 1: Define the production scenario

What products will be manufactured? In what volumes? With what growth trajectory over the facility's 20-30 year life?

Step 2: Map the process

What are the production routes? Which processes are shared across products? Where are the potential bottlenecks?

Step 3: Run capacity simulation

Using Monte Carlo methods, we test thousands of scenarios with varying demand, OEE, and operational parameters. This reveals not just average utilization, but peak loads and confidence intervals.

Step 4: Right-size the equipment

Based on simulation results, we determine exactly how many units of each equipment type are needed — not to meet average demand, but to maintain target service levels under realistic variability.

Step 5: Generate facility inputs

With equipment counts determined, we can specify footprints, utility loads, and flow requirements for the architectural design.

The Value of Getting It Right Early

The cost of changes escalates dramatically as a project progresses:

• Conceptual phase: Changing equipment counts costs nothing beyond analysis time
• Schematic design: Adjusting room sizes requires redrawing, but it's manageable
• Design development: Changes ripple through structural, MEP, and process drawings
• Construction documents: Changes require expensive revision cycles
• Construction: Physical changes can cost millions

A recent industry study found that changes made during construction cost 10-50x more than the same changes made during conceptual design. For a pharmaceutical facility where a single cleanroom suite might cost $5-10 million, the stakes are enormous.

By running capacity simulation during the conceptual phase, we've helped clients avoid:

• Overbuilding granulation suites that were sized for worst-case estimates rather than simulated requirements
• Underbuilding blister packaging areas that looked adequate on average but failed under realistic peak scenarios
• Designing single-product facilities that couldn't accommodate the product mix that actually emerged

A Partnership Model That Works

We've developed a collaborative approach with architects and engineering firms:

1. Early engagement

We join the project team during conceptual design, not after building layout is locked.

2. Scenario-driven design

Instead of designing for a single production target, we model multiple scenarios: base case, aggressive growth, product mix changes. The facility design can then optimize for flexibility where it matters most.

3. Equipment specification support

Our simulation outputs translate directly into equipment requirements documents that vendors can quote and architects can plan around.

4. Iteration loops

As architectural concepts evolve, we re-run simulations to validate that capacity requirements are still met. It's a dialogue, not a one-time handoff.

Beyond New Facilities

This partnership model extends beyond greenfield construction.

For facility renovations and expansions, the same principles apply. When an existing plant needs to add capacity, simulation can determine whether the solution is new equipment, operational changes, or physical expansion — and quantify the tradeoffs before any concrete is poured.

For equipment replacements, we can model how new equipment capabilities (higher speeds, faster changeovers, better OEE) translate into capacity gains — helping justify capital requests with data rather than intuition.

The Outcome

When capacity planning and facility design work together from the start, the results are facilities that:

• Fit their purpose: Equipment quantities match actual production requirements
• Have room to grow: Expansion scenarios are built into the design where they matter
• Minimize waste: No million-dollar cleanroom suites sitting at 40% utilization
• Enable operations: Material flows and room layouts support efficient production

For architects, this means fewer late-stage redesigns and more confident clients. For pharmaceutical companies, this means facilities that deliver the capacity they need, when they need it, without overbuilding.

Facility design decisions echo for decades. Get the capacity math right before the concrete sets. Let's talk about how simulation can inform your next facility project.