Ten top tips to get the warehouse you want

Ten top tips to get the warehouse you want

With more than a million square feet of warehouses to its name and hundreds of projects completed, distribution property specialist sbh.uk is ideally placed to advise and guide logistics management on the Do’s and Don’ts when planning a new warehouse. Senior Surveyor Laurie Sice points out the top ten issues that each play a vital role in getting the right warehouse, on time and within budget.

1. Think about the future
In business, tomorrow will be unlike today - but none of us quite knows in what way So do not let your warehouse planning be a straightjacket by ignoring how your storage and distribution needs may change. Build in as much flexibility as you can and consider how the building may be extended or adapted in the future. A little thought and cost may save a lot of expense later on.

2. Put a Champion in the ring

A building project may appear straightforward, but will quickly raise a number of issues you may not have considered – and may not have the time to address. By appointing a Project Champion –someone with the time, organisational skills and authority to oversee the project – you will have a single point of contact who can consult and resolve issues as they arise.

3. Sighting the right site

Many promising projects have fallen foul by not selecting and acquiring the most suitable site. Your selection criteria should consider factors such as current and anticipated distribution demands – whether by road, rail or both - availability of labour and scope for expansion, which are just as important as cost. To make sure you are
in a powerful negotiating position you should always run with at least two optional sites to ensure you are competitively placed.

The building configuration and the site – its size, dimensions and position – are interlinked and finalising a building plan before finding a site may result in extra costs as well as possibly failing to exploit the site’s potential.


4. Get the brief right

With these facts and figures in place and a Champion appointed you are ready for the vital and often time-consuming stage, deciding what you want from the project. You can only have what you want if you know what you want. Take time to prepare the brief and involve your management team as fully as possible.

5. Give yourself Time

The next stage is to ensure that you allow adequate time for the project, but at the same time plan to achieve completion in the shortest period. Your in-house project manager Champion and adviser can play a vital role by involving all interested parties so that everyone is committed to the project’s success.

6. A shell building is just that
Spec buildings will give you a shell structure with usually the minimum of services. To ensure you have the right warehouse for the task will require a full internal fit-out – a service that sbh.uk has provided to hundreds of clients - which gives you the chance to customise the building. But before you sign anything, make sure you know what is, and equally importantly, is not included in the shell.

7. Managing the project
This stage requires some understanding of the way in which the construction industry has evolved in recent years and the various ways in which you, the client, can work with your chosen supplier. The various parts of the construction industry can be brought together in different ways, known as Procurement Routes, to suit your priorities. No one solution is right for every circumstance but some routes will offer less risk than others. The final decision will depend on cost, time and quality issues and on whether your project is relatively straightforward or requires specialist skills. The three commonly accepted procurement routes are Traditional, Design and Build and Professional Construction Management.

8. Think Green and Mean Green
While the environment is a big issue in the media and most companies are promising to go green, in reality the additional capital cost of most energy-saving technologies are still a deterrent. However established systems such as BMS have proven their value, and with energy costs sure to increase above inflation, the payback period for solar energy panels and other types of energy-efficient systems is bound to fall.

9. Lease v purchase

Don’t assume automatically that buying is best. The times of big capital value increases may be past and there may be more productive uses for the capital that purchasing will require.

Recent research carried out indicates that companies who lease their properties perform better than those who buy, possibly because the regular rent payments focus management on the real cost of the premises and how to get the maximum return.

10. Little things can mean a lot
Despite the best of plans, clients occasionally forget simple but important facilities that most warehouses need. You may require a standby generator, battery charging facilities or a high level of security lighting. While some services may appear to be part of the fit-out, it will affect the developer’s works as they will need to supply the incoming main, its arrangements and the split between essential and non-essential services.
The demands of the Packaging Directives may add yet another twist to the need for an environmentally responsible attitude to waste disposal. Waste compactors need space, contractors need access and your staff should be able to transport waste easily from the warehouse to whatever waste disposal containers are appropriate.

Getting the right warehouse is a demanding and often complex business, but these initial points should help most companies avoid some of the more damaging errors. However as an experienced warehouse property consultancy we know from clients such as Kelloggs, Austin Reed, L’Oréal, B & Q and Superdrug, that the most sensible step is to use the services of an experienced company such as sbh from the outset.”

December - 2007