Leslie Weaver and George Hunt on Scaling Lean and Sustainable Design

Access Part 1 of this interview on early sustainability and lean alignment in pharma construction.

In Part 2 of a two-part interview at INTERPHEX 2026, Leslie Weaver, sustainability project manager, IPS, and George Hunt, corporate lean director, IPS, discuss two interconnected ideas reshaping how pharmaceutical facilities are designed and built: design for disassembly and lean thinking applied to capital projects.

Weaver explains the concept of design for disassembly, an approach that builds flexibility and adaptability directly into a facility from the outset, rather than locking in rigid structures that must eventually be demolished and discarded. She draws on the familiar example of modular office cubicles that can be reconfigured rather than torn out and notes that this same logic is increasingly relevant in pharmaceutical construction.

"I'd love to see us get more innovative in how we can implement the design for disassembly and keep materials in their useful life for as long as possible," Weaver says.

She acknowledges the challenge lies in the technical complexity of pharma environments, where highly specialized equipment and tightly controlled processes make flexibility harder to achieve than in conventional commercial spaces.

Hunt pivots to the question of lean thinking and how to move it beyond a one-time project exercise into an enduring partnership mindset. He argues that the real value comes not from applying lean principles to a single build, but from carrying lessons learned forward across multiple projects.

As he puts it, "We can bring what we've learned on this last one, let's bring them here and let's try and do it better and kind of improve on that."

Hunt also points out that while lean thinking is already embedded in many pharma manufacturers' production operations, what's newer is bringing that same discipline to the capital project process itself: the planning, design, and construction of the facilities where manufacturing happens.

Together, Weaver and Hunt make the case that sustainability and lean principles aren't separate agendas but complementary frameworks for building smarter, more adaptable pharma facilities and for scaling those improvements across an entire organization.