A €150M three-storey expansion at MSD’s Ballydine campus — bridging R&D innovation with commercial-scale oral solid dosage manufacturing, with 223 complex interdependent systems commissioned and 150 partners trained across a 24-month lean construction and lean commissioning programme.
Last Planner® System
Value Stream Mapping
6S Methodology
Lean Commissioning
CQV Optimisation
The Ballydine B-Con OSD project did not just build new facilities — it created the infrastructure that transforms MSD's scientific discoveries into medicines. By integrating a new three-storey manufacturing extension with the existing R&D and Formulation Building, this project enabled MSD to scale promising compounds from laboratory-scale development directly into full commercial oral solid dosage production. Lean construction was the operating system that made this technically and operationally complex bridge possible.
| Project Value | Duration | Teams Collaborated with | Systems Installed & Comissioned | Partners Trained & Certified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| € 150M | 24 Months | 8 | 223 | 150 |
| Project Value | € 150M |
|---|---|
| Duration | 24 Months |
| Teams Collaborated with | 8 |
| Systems Installed & Commissioned | 223 |
| Partners Trained & Certified | 150 |
The MSD Ballydine B-Con OSD Project represents a strategically critical investment at MSD’s Ballydine campus in County Tipperary — one of MSD’s most important Irish manufacturing sites. Valued at €150 million and executed over 24 months, the project delivered a new three-storey extension comprising two fully interconnected blocks — Block A and Block B — integrated directly with the existing R&D and Formulation Building on the campus.
The facility was specifically designed to support advanced Oral Solid Dosage (OSD) manufacturing — one of the most widely prescribed drug formats in global pharmaceuticals. OSD manufacturing encompasses tablets, capsules, and other solid oral drug products, each requiring precisely controlled granulation, blending, compression, coating, and packaging processes. The technical complexity of the systems involved — and the stringent GMP requirements governing their installation, commissioning, and validation — made this one of the most demanding pharmaceutical construction and commissioning programmes Lean Touch Solutions has delivered.
Critically, the expansion also included car parking and critical site infrastructure upgrades — reflecting the scope of this programme as not just a facility build but a comprehensive campus development that strengthened Ballydine’s long-term operational capacity.
The R&D bridge: By integrating the new OSD manufacturing blocks directly with the existing R&D and Formulation Building, MSD created a seamless pathway from drug discovery to commercial-scale production. Lean construction — and specifically the cross-functional collaborative planning the Last Planner® System creates — was essential to managing the interface between research operations and active construction throughout the 24-month programme.
Each of the 223 systems required precise installation, testing, and commissioning to meet GMP standards for OSD manufacturing. The interdependencies between systems — where the commissioning sequence of one system directly affects another — demanded structured, collaborative planning discipline.
The physical scope of the B-Con OSD project was defined by two interconnected building blocks, each serving distinct but complementary functions in the expanded OSD manufacturing operation.
Our Lean Programme –
Lean Touch Solutions provided comprehensive lean construction and lean commissioning services throughout the full lifecycle of the B-Con OSD project — from design through to GMP-compliant handover. Our programme was uniquely designed to address both the construction challenge and the commissioning challenge as a single integrated lean system.
Because the project occurred within a live R&D environment and involved complex OSD processes, lean practices were not optional — they were critical. The proximity to live R&D operations demanded precise interface management, and the complexity of the 223 interdependent systems demanded collaborative planning that no traditional scheduling approach could provide.
Lean Commissioning — a distinctive feature of this programme. Unlike most construction projects where lean engagement ends at practical completion, Lean Touch Solutions extended its lean programme into the commissioning and qualification phases. Our Lean Commissioning approach notably reduced the gap between construction completion and GMP-compliant readiness — accelerating the time from handover to commercial manufacturing capability.
The operational backbone of the expansion — collaborative weekly work planning across all 10 teams, with structured look-ahead scheduling and constraint removal specifically designed to protect live operations from construction interference.
Current-state and future-state mapping of critical construction and commissioning workflows — identifying and eliminating non-value-adding activities, particularly at the boundaries between live operations and new construction.
Comprehensive 6S site organisation across all construction and new-facility zones — creating clean, safe, well-organised workspaces that minimised contamination risks to adjacent live GMP areas throughout the 24-month programme.
Interface processes between construction and live operations mapped in detail — from utility outage procedures to commissioning handover protocols — ensuring every cross-boundary activity had a defined, optimised, and agreed process.
Interface processes between construction and live operations mapped in detail — from utility outage procedures to commissioning handover protocols — ensuring every cross-boundary activity had a defined, optimised, and agreed process.
Cultural transformation across all 10 teams and 300 certified partners — building the five lean behaviours (Trust, Accountability, Transparency, Respect, Continuous Improvement) that underpinned the collaborative planning needed for live-site delivery.
The first Lean Touch Solutions project to deploy A3 Problem Solving and full Lean Commissioning as integrated programme tools — extending lean beyond construction into CQV to accelerate GMP-ready manufacturing capability.
Lean Commissioning –
Lean Commissioning applies the principles of lean — eliminating waste, creating flow, and building in collaborative planning — to the Commissioning, Qualification, and Validation (CQV) phases of pharmaceutical facility delivery. On conventional projects, the transition from construction completion to GMP readiness is frequently the most delayed and most waste-intensive phase of the entire programme.
The reasons are predictable: documentation backlogs, unresolved punch-list items from construction, sequential IQ/OQ/PQ protocols that create waiting waste, and poor visibility of who is doing what and when. Lean Commissioning addresses all of these systematically — applying Last Planner® System pull planning to CQV workflows, using Value Stream Mapping to redesign commissioning processes, and using A3 problem solving to resolve complex technical issues quickly.
On the MSD Ballydine B-Con OSD project, Lean Commissioning noticeably reduced the gap between construction completion and GMP-compliant readiness — directly accelerating MSD’s ability to begin OSD commercial production in the new facility.
Project Approach –
From the outset, Lean Touch Solutions developed and led a unified lean construction and commissioning strategy — one that treated the entire journey from ground-breaking to GMP handover as a single lean system, not as two separate phases with separate planning approaches.
We collaborated closely with MSD’s leadership, R&D and engineering teams, contractors, equipment suppliers, and validation experts. This early multi-disciplinary alignment ensured the strategy addressed the unique challenges of live R&D integration, OSD technology complexity, and the CQV demands of an advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing facility.
Lean programme developed jointly with MSD construction leadership, R&D teams, engineering managers, equipment suppliers, and CQV experts. Unique challenge: the strategy had to address three distinct environments simultaneously — active construction, live R&D, and future OSD manufacturing — all on the same campus.
Full commitment secured from MSD leadership, site operations, R&D management, all 8 trade contractors, and equipment suppliers. Particularly critical was aligning the R&D team — whose ongoing research activities created the live-environment interface challenge — with the construction planning commitments required to protect their operations.
Last Planner® System launched, 5S deployed site-wide, and visual management boards installed. 150 partners trained and certified. A3 problem solving introduced as the structured approach for cross-team technical challenges. Weekly work planning cycles embedded across all 8 teams with interface windows to R&D activities managed through the look-ahead schedule.
Value Stream Mapping deployed as the 223 complex systems entered installation — mapping the current-state installation and commissioning sequence, identifying interdependency bottlenecks, and designing future-state workflows that compressed the critical path between installation and qualification readiness.
As construction neared completion, the lean programme transitioned seamlessly into Lean Commissioning — applying pull planning to IQ/OQ/PQ protocol execution across all 223 systems. A3 problem solving used to rapidly resolve technical commissioning issues. The result: construction-to-GMP-readiness gap significantly reduced, enabling MSD's commercial OSD production capability to come on stream on schedule.
Outcomes & Results –
The lean programme on the B-Con OSD project delivered on every critical metric — schedule, quality, system commissioning, partner capability, and GMP readiness. Uniquely, this is the project in our portfolio where Lean Commissioning played the most distinctive and measurable role.
Facility delivered on time across 24-month construction & commissioning programme
Complex interdependent systems installed, commissioned, and GMP validated
Partners trained and certified in lean construction and commissioning methodology
Specialist teams unified through a single lean planning and problem-solving system
OSD Construction & Lean Commissioning –
Oral solid dosage pharmaceutical facilities are among the most technically complex environments for construction and commissioning. The interdependencies between systems — granulation, blending, compression, coating, packaging, environmental controls, utilities, and quality systems — create a commissioning web that can consume months of avoidable delay when managed by conventional sequential approaches.
The Ballydine B-Con OSD project demonstrates the power of treating lean construction and lean commissioning as a single, integrated programme. When the same collaborative planning discipline, the same constraint management processes, and the same lean behaviours that drove construction performance are extended into CQV, the result is a dramatically shorter path to GMP-ready manufacturing capability.
Lean Touch Solutions is the only LCI-registered lean construction consultancy in Ireland that delivers comprehensive lean construction and lean commissioning as an integrated service. Our track record across five MSD facilities — from Swords and Carlow to Ballydine — demonstrates what this integrated approach achieves on the most demanding pharmaceutical programmes.
Our integrated lean construction and lean commissioning approach is uniquely suited to OSD and pharmaceutical facility programmes. Let’s talk.
The only approach that delivers both the build and the GMP handover — from ground-breaking to commercial manufacturing readiness, with lean embedded throughout.
The A3 Problem Solving methodology — named after the A3 paper format used to capture the full problem-solving cycle on a single page — was a distinctive feature of the Ballydine OSD lean programme. On a project with 223 interdependent systems and 8 specialist teams, complex technical problems are inevitable. What determines project performance is how quickly and systematically those problems are resolved.
A3 provides a structured PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) framework that forces clarity about the problem, the root cause, the countermeasure, and the verification method — all visible on a single page. When deployed across multi-disciplinary teams spanning construction, R&D, and commissioning, A3 becomes a powerful tool for cross-functional alignment and rapid issue resolution.
The gap between construction completion and GMP-ready manufacturing capability is consistently the most overlooked source of pharmaceutical project delay. Conventional commissioning approaches — sequential IQ/OQ/PQ protocols, reactive issue resolution, and poor cross-functional coordination — routinely extend this gap by weeks or months.
OSD pharmaceutical manufacturing requires one of the most technically demanding construction and commissioning environments in the industry. Granulation, blending, compression, coating, and packaging systems — each with stringent environmental classification, cross-contamination control, and validation requirements — create a commissioning programme of extraordinary complexity when 200+ systems are involved.
Lean Touch Solutions has the OSD-specific experience to deploy lean construction and lean commissioning methods in this environment — understanding the technical context, the regulatory requirements, and the interdependency challenges that define OSD facility delivery.
Lean Touch Solutions is the only LCI-registered lean construction consultancy in Ireland that delivers lean construction and lean commissioning as a fully integrated service. Our five major MSD programmes — from Swords and Carlow to Ballydine — span €2.5Bn+ in pharmaceutical construction and commissioning delivery.
Based in Naas, Co. Kildare, we serve pharmaceutical, biotech, OSD, and life sciences construction projects across Ireland and Europe. Contact our team to discuss how integrated lean construction and commissioning can transform delivery on your next pharmaceutical programme.
