Posted 15 October 2012
A view from the warehouse floor
Our recent move to St. Albans from London Colney took the efforts of the whole company. All staff lent a hand as we successfully relocated approximately three miles up the road to a new 55,000 sq. ft premises. Wired spoke to warehouse Manager Kevin Rainbow about his take on how things went.
Kevin Rainbow: We had been in our previous premises for just over seven years and had identified the need for additional space for some time. None of the neighbours wanted to sell, so after a chance conversation with a commercial agent, we went to see a large refurbished unit on the east side of St. Albans.
Ten days later a deal was done and two weeks after that contracts had been exchanged. The speed was awesome, even the solicitors were surprised it had happened so quickly.
The first thing we did was to get all the staff over to have a look at their new home and get them planning the move.
Although the building had been refurbished there was still a lot to do, including removing walls to make larger offices and install suitable alarm and CCTV systems – not to mention the data wiring and racking.
The move started in earnest at the beginning of February, first just moving the slowest moving stock and packaging supplies by a few loads a day. We vowed to keep trading until the last minute and cause the minimum disruption to our customers.
We let customers know there would be no collections or despatches on Friday 8th February giving us three clear days to shift as much as we could including all the office, computer, telephone equipment and the contents of the entire warehouse.
We estimate somewhere between sixty and seventy arctic movements took place between the two buildings with just under half using a double-decker trailer!
What then followed was a testament to teamwork and clear objectives. By Monday 11th February we had shipped all Friday’s orders and about half of Monday’s.
By Thursday, less than a week after the move, we had caught up and had no backlog of orders and no cut-off point for orders received that day (or any since).
As always if we can ship it the same day we will!
The warehouse was a little untidy but customers received their cable on time and that’s what counted. More racking was put up in July to accommodate the last remaining stock and hold the increased stock levels on the fastest moving lines.
Once again a huge thank you to all the staff who put in so much effort and to you the customers who made it all possible.
As always, if you’re passing by and fancy a cup of tea please pop in – we’ll be proud to show you around.