Relocation of Hobbii's distribution center

Spring 2020 Hobbii decided to move to a new warehouse facility withing a timeframe of 6 months from descision to cut-over.

The new warehouse of 10.000 sqm is built as a part of MG Park GDC located in the suburb Greve - part of Greater Copenhagen area.

Planning

The project started with data analyzing our current production, historical data and forecast of the business growth. Hobbii have at that time a growth rate of 3.167 % within the last 4 financial years.

As result of the data analyzis we forecasted the usage and demand storage locations which we used to plan the layout for pallet racking and picking shelves.

Due to the time constraint on the project we did choose to keep as many of our Standard Operations Procedures as is, since we already had a good production and it made us a bit more confident to do more of what we already knew.

I presented the plan for direction and the board for approval.

Procurement

As part of the project I did all the procumerent of:

• Contractors for building modifications and additions
• Network Infrastructure
• Racking for 10.000 pallet locations
• Trucks & lifts
• Relocation of existing automation

Software

Project manager for following software projects

• Updates to our picking application to support multiple warehouses
• ERP configuration for a new warehouse
• Implementation of new pick routing in the WMS
• Implemention of new batch & delivery slip production

Other tasks

• Handover related tasks with landlord
• Fire department approval
• Physical security and theft protection
• In-house production of 30.000 location labels
• Final testing of operations and processes before cut over

Moving the operation

We did start moving parts of our buffer inventory a couple of weeks before the cut-over day to be as ready as possible. We did stop the old warehouse shipments Thursday evening, moved rest of the invotory and started full production Monday morning.

We only lost around 4 days of production and we quickly ramped the production up to be at least the same as before the move.

Employee happiness

Since a relocation of 150 employees is a big thing, I did try to make a better work experience at the new warehouse; that included:

• Latest and greatest in trucks and lifts on the market
• Simpler and better routing
• Better staff facilities like leaisure areas, nice canteen facilities, paid bikes and public transport passes in the transition period.
• Sound system for background music in the warehouse
• Better packing stations
• Great catering service - that includes breakfeast, snacks and hot-meals for both shifts

Vendors & solutions

I would gladly recommend theese vendors for great support and coorperation with our new warehouse: