Laboratory User Manual Working Group

Industry Lead: Adana Johns, Perkins and Will, and Christopher Kleingartner, Perkins and Will

Working Group: Calling all interested! We are looking for professionals across all disciplines in all areas of expertise and level.

Coordinated by: Perkins and Will

Working Group Intent

The purpose of this working group is to create a tool that will serve as a manual to document the intended use of the building. The working group will involve laboratory operations personnel, design professionals (both architecture and engineering), and product representatives to provide input on the content and format that would be most usable and adaptable for the manual.

Once the content and magnitude are defined, the working group will seek out resources through I2SL to build a database that will meet the needs of the users. The sequence of the work and initial impression of the steps required to create the Laboratory User Manual are:

  1. Define content to be included in the manual
  2. Define organizational model
  3. Define origin of the information that will be included
  4. Design dashboard interface
  5. Engage and manage third party to develop database and dashboard
  6. Develop protocol for information input and update
  7. Form committees to input data
  8. Identify a case study and perform beta testing using a sustainable laboratory approaching completion

This manual, similar the I2SL-hosted Laboratory Benchmarking Tool, is intended to be a dynamic, ever-evolving tool.

Topic Areas

Committee chair working groups will be made up of four to six professionals in each of the following preliminary subcommittees:

  1. Laboratory Planning—module template, typical templates
  2. Laboratory Equipment
  3. Buildings Systems—power, air, gases (capacity, redundancy, and adaptability)
  4. Building Design—workplace strategy, amenities, adjacencies, flexibility, expandability, building / development masterplan
  5. Sustainability
  6. Policy/Reporting/Other Operational Programs
  7. Software Interface/Maintenance

Introductory Webinar

Presented by Adana Johns and Christopher Kleingartner, Perkins and Will.

This free webinar introduces the Laboratory User Manual Working Group and its mission to provide laboratory operations and maintenance personnel a comprehensive user manual, capturing the design intent and operational procedures of the completed building. The manual will be a reference tool that is customized to the project including information such as:

  1. Geographical location and resilience factors
  2. Building systems design
  3. Façade and architectural life safety design
  4. Record of the life safety design intent and safety standard operating procedures
  5. Equipment optimized use and maintenance protocol
  6. Building and materials maintenance
Download the free webinar recording.

Get Involved

This working group invites individuals and organizations committed to helping I2SL develop the Laboratory User Manual. The working group is currently divided among the above seven committees. Each committee will focus on one of the above efforts and provide recommendations for how each can best be integrated into the Laboratory User Manual dashboard. Organizational representatives are encouraged to contribute their technical expertise, facility information, and experiences.

Representatives will meet in person at least once annually at the I2SL Annual Conference to discuss progress toward developing the dashboard. Periodic conference calls are scheduled throughout the year, both on the working group and at the committee level.

If you would like to join the working group, contact I2SL.

For more information, sign up for a kick-off webinar on September 17, 2019.