Intelligent Interiors

With only five months to complete the project, Colin Geffre, facilities manager for Enpath, was another key player. He recalls: “I practically lived on the plant floor 100 hours a week,” huddling with KM job-site superintendent Steve Weibel a dozen or more times a day to keep up with changes and keep everything on schedule. Most projects include a few surprises, and this one was no exception. One major obstacle was the need to cover a 16,850-square-foot floor with an epoxy sealant to keep dampness at bay and ensure an airtight, pristine space. The size of the cleanroom areas also grew over time, as the company finalized its production-facility needs.

“The plans changed two dozen times,” Geffre says. “We had architects onsite, laying out the production floors and figuring out how we’d need the mechanical and electrical systems installed, and where to put interior walls to structure the space. The office area took a lot of planning to figure out what we wanted to do there. The CEO had a vision of how he wanted the space to look.” By the February deadline, Enpath was able to move into its state-of-the-art plant and begin producing precision medical devices.

Shorter timelines may be making “on the fly” facility design more common for commercial interior contractors who need to adapt quickly to succeed. Geffre notes: “To move into a facility as nice as this one after just five months would have been almost impossible, if they [the contractors] hadn’t been so flexible.”