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Five Projects Put a National Rollout on the Fast Track Few companies illustrate the complexities and opportunities of supply-chain management the way the AmerisourceBergen Corp. (ABC) does. As the largest pharmaceuticals-specific supply chain services company in the United States, ABC provides a contemporary case study of the distribution network. For Industrial Developments International, Inc. (IDI), Kajima and one architectural firm, it serves also as a case study of an aggressive, multiple-project rollout. Often when companies undergo a consolidation of their distribution network, they implement a rather long-term program, planning new structures one after another. ABC, however, consolidated the timelines as well as its network, introducing five new IDI-developed and Kajima-constructed distribution facilities in five new locations in just two and a half years. Each project has been a full-service venture, including site search, due diligence, design and construction. IDI submitted its development proposal to ABC in January 2002 and ground was broken in November of the same year in Columbus, Ohio. Other sites that followed included Dallas, Texas; Chicago, Illinois; Kansas City, Missouri; and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The latter project is scheduled for completion in July 2005. |
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Michael Felton, vice president of corporate development for IDI's National Fee Development group, said the overall project was made more complex by the highly automated and forward-focused nature of the ABC facilities. Fully expandable to 56,000 square meters (600,000 square feet), each building currently has an average footprint of 28,000 square meters (300,000 square feet), not counting its office, parking and truck-court space. In addition, each building is fully air-conditioned and carries a redundant power supply backed by a 2,000-kilowatt generator. Fire protection also is redundant for added protection of the high-value contents. The buildings were constructed by Kajima Construction Services, Inc. (KCS) offices in Cincinnati, Dallas and Chicago. The architect for all the buildings was Macgregor Associates Architects in Atlanta. IDI offices in Cincinnati, Dallas and Chicago assisted. Michael Parks, vice president for IDI's National Business Development, oversaw the client-developer relationship, and saw the consistency within the project team as one of the keys to success. "This was an ambitious turnkey effort," he noted. "We achieved continuous process improvement from one location to another because we had fewer change orders with each subsequent building, effectively managing everything from the security required by the client to meeting Federal Drug Administration regulations." |
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| Kajima Bids Successfully for the St.Regis Hotel and Residence Joint Development Project in Singapore Kajima Overseas Asia Pte. Ltd. (KOA) and Tiong Seng Contractors (Pte) Ltd., a leading general construction company in Singapore, formed a consortium represented by a Kajima subsidiary in Singapore to enter designated competitive bidding for a contract worth about 20 billion yen for construction of the St. Regis Hotel and Residence Joint Development Project, involving the Singaporean industrial conglomerate Hong Leong Group and Japan's Mitsui Fudosan Group. The consortium submitted the successful bid in competition among six companies, including other Japanese contractors. The project involves the construction of a complex comprising a 20-story first-class hotel with 299 elegant guest rooms and two 20-story luxury apartment towers with a total of 255 privately owned residences. The complex will be located in the Tanglin area, a tranquil, prestigious residential district near the Orchard Road area, Singapore's commercial center. St. Regis Hotel is one of America's most storied hotel brands. The six-star hotel, scheduled to open in 2007, will offer numerous deluxe facilities, including Singapore's largest ballroom, with capacity for 1,000 guests, and an air-conditioned two-story indoor tennis court complex. The luxury residence towers have been dubbed St. Regis Residence and will share some facilities with the hotel. The aim is to create the most exclusive property in Singapore's luxury condominium market. |
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Kajima Open MRI Room Technology Draws a Tremendous Response at RSNA 2004 Kajima exhibited the technology for the world's first open magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) room at the 90th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA 2004), held from November 28 to December 3 at McCormick Place in Chicago. RSNA, a nonprofit organization, aims to promote and develop the highest standards of radiology and related sciences through education and research. At its booth, Kajima displayed a transparent shielding door for an open MRI room developed by Kajima and NABTESCO Corporation, the first of its kind in the world. The door is made using magnetic shielding sticks developed jointly by Kajima and Nippon Steel Corporation and magnetic shielding glass developed jointly by Kajima and Taiyo Wire Cloth Co., Ltd. Because the shielding door is suitable for use with high magnetic field MRI equipment with field strengths of 1.5 tesla or higher, it is not subject to the limitations on installation location that apply to conventional shielding doors. The glass used in the door incorporates stainless steel wire fabric that provides a magnetic shielding effect. The use of double panes of the glass makes possible electromagnetic shielding effectiveness of 100 decibels and effective sound insulation. Because the wire fabric has an extremely fine mesh, it offers light transmittance of 60% or higher. During the five-day exhibition, the Kajima booth drew more than 2,000 visitors, and Kajima received many specific inquiries concerning the breakthrough technology from radiology professionals from around the world. More than 90% of visitors who filled out a questionnaire indicated interest in Kajima's magnetic shielding technology. One visitor commented, "I've been involved in MRI-related work for more than 20 years, and this type of technology for enclosing MRI rooms with glass doors and walls is a first. I definitely want to use it." Kajima plans to move forward with further product development, including the development of modular panels for magnetic glass doors and wall panels. |
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The Curtain Is Set to Rise on the 2005 World Exposition, Aichi, Japan Based on the theme Nature's Wisdom, the 2005 World Exposition, Aichi, Japan opens on March 25. The exposition will be held at two venues on a site covering approximately 173 hectares (430 acres) in a hilly suburban area to the east of the city of Nagoya in central Japan. More than 120 countries and international organizations will participate in the exposition, and countless appealing attractions and events will be held during the 185 days until it closes on September 25. Main exhibits include leading-edge environmental technologies, information technologies, next-generation robots, and a frozen woolly mammoth excavated from the permafrost in Russia. Working robots will share in cleaning, security, and customer service duties. Access to the venue will be provided by the world's first magnetic levitated train in commercial service. The 2005 World Exposition, Aichi, Japan is the world's first exposition for which site planning and construction was conducted on the basis of environmental impact assessment, and more than 217 evaluation items were considered. The 3R principle (reduce, reuse, recycle) has been rigorously adhered to, including 100% reuse of the concrete fragments from previous facilities demolished on the site and the use of wood obtained from thinning and recycled material. Kajima has been extensively involved in preparation of the exposition, with responsibility for land development work for the main sites, the construction of three corporate pavilions, preparation of the route infrastructure for the unmanned buses of the Intelligent Multimode Transit System (IMTS), and construction of the Global Loop, Global Commons, and Expo Dome. In pavilion construction, Kajima used temporary materials and otherwise actively engaged in environmentally friendly construction. |
 Vol. 32 Spring 2005
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