After spending 8 happy years at The Granary, Warkworth we have successfully moved from an office-style building to a larger unit in Banbury. This move means that we can continue to expand our eye health business, fulfil our customer’s orders in an efficient and timely manner and combat fluctuations in stock availability.
Planning
It was becoming more and more claustrophobic, as shelving units gradually filled every room at Warkworth. Our prescription goggle suppliers, particularly in Europe could no longer guarantee our stock would arrive or they required us to order in bulk for the months ahead. We desperately needed more space to continue to offer a wide selection and we didn’t want to let our customers down.
There was a small kitchen without a staff dining area and nowhere other than the hallway to store the sacks of orders awaiting collection by Royal Mail which was a trip hazard.
We looked into purchasing outdoor storage units but ultimately decided having everything all under one roof was a better option. Banbury has a thriving business community, small yet local industrial estates and we soon narrowed our search down from 2 to 1 nearby units. From the start, we consulted with our staff, as it is a big change for them and they came to the viewings with us.
The distance between the two premises was only a few miles but with the heat of the summer looming, we decided to start sorting out and recycling what we didn’t need and moving non-essential items. Luckily, our local freecycle page was, as always, surprisingly helpful at finding homes for even the most unusual office and retail items.
Even with onscreen scale drawings, it is hard to visualise how much stock and office furniture each new, empty room can hold. We found that actually placing items and shelf boards on the floor gave us a scale and spacings to work from.
Naming the rooms and warehouse areas had to happen quickly too, so we all knew exactly where to put things and how the work would flow. Choosing a staff room took some time, we decided being next to the kitchen downstairs would work best for access to the fridge, toaster and microwave. This also avoided any potential health and safety issues with carrying hot food and drinks upstairs.
Time saving tips
Managing an office move project takes a lot of forethought, vision and planning, for me, actual physical walk throughs of the stock in, order processing, packing and despatch really helped. Our landlord helpfully repainted the interior and offered his carpentry services to custom-build wall-mounted and space saving packing benches. The excellent, hard-working Gentlevan Removals who we have used previously, moved our remaining stock, shelving and office furniture on the day. Dismantling with a mallet and rebuilding metal racking with heavy chipboard shelves is really hard work. Somehow the removal men, moved them out as whole units, carried them in and even upstairs in the heat!
The utilities, heating, electricity, water, IT and waste/recycling collections needed attention with a new boiler, air conditioning, network points and a roller door service carried out. Security and fire safety were upgraded to include an alarm, fire alarm upgrade, new lighting and CCTV throughout the premises.
Thankfully, I had the inspiration from previous office moves to label the stock boxes and corresponding shelves alphanumerically (A1, A2 etc) to help efficiently find where everything went without the usual chaos on the day. We closed for a few days before a weekend to allow us to get organised ahead of our first order run on Monday morning. It can feel quite daunting printing off the last order then switching it all off. We crossed our fingers that it would all restart successfully.
On moving day itself, we were surrounded by workmen and trades finishing off which was challenging as we needed to fill the shelves with stock as soon as possible. We all worked around each other together and the team pulled together to make it work.
Thankfully, the first order run went really smoothly with all the IT connected to the network and functioning well.
We were all sorry to leave our old premises as we had such happy memories of working there but now we feel at home and more organised here, we are all enjoying having more space to work in.
Settling in
It’s funny how the small things need agreement, such as where to put the tea tray and microwave, with consideration given to aspects of health and safety. A new fridge was ordered along with doormats to protect our new carpet.
The challenge with a moving project is that the business has to run alongside it and the extra work has to be absorbed somehow by a small team. By the staff starting to save boxes and pack in the months before, the directors having early starts and weekend trips to and from the premises, we managed to get ahead and pre-empt any issues before they arose.
Across our product range, we were finding that supply chains were becoming volatile. Out of stock situations, forward ordering requirements and discontinuations were frustrating us and our customers. The best thing is we can receive and store pallets, maintaining our stock levels, ensuring that our high standards of service to the optical industry are achievable in the years to come.