Budget constraints, space limitations, other considerations when relocating an in-plant

By Carmin Cristofaro and Abel De Andrade

Develop Guiding Principles

From the very beginning we established some basic principles that guided us throughout the project. Almost every time we looked at an option or a proposal, we evaluated it against these principles.

Environment: Create a safe and pleasant atmosphere.

• Corridors that are clutter-free.

• An efficient HVAC system.

• Lots of natural window light.

• Staff lounge with full kitchen.

• Obligatory use of ear protection when working with the folder or numbering machine.

• Ample space around equipment for maintenance.

• Professional-looking offices.

Logical Workflow:

• The equipment and workstations were placed to efficiently move orders through the workflow, with no doubling back.

• Openings were cut through concrete block walls to connect three rooms and facilitate this flow.

• All orders that come from the digital black-and-white and color units, as well as the offset presses, end up flowing into the finishing area, which is right next to the packing and shipping area, which, in turn, is right next to the shipping dock.

Organization: a place for everything, and everything in its place.

• The key to reducing time wasted in hunting for materials is to properly organize and identify shelves and storage areas.

• Place supplies close to the point of use.

• A central stockroom, while seemingly logical, contributes to an enormous waste of man hours as staff must travel to it several times per day to retrieve supplies.

When Your in-plant gets an opportunity to relocate its operations into new facilities, you had better make sure to do it right, for you may never get that chance again. This is when you do all the things you always wanted to do but could not, because of space limitations or budget constraints. This is when you do a lot of reading on "Lean methodology" and apply as much of it as you can.

When we relocated our two print shops at McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Quebec, we made sure to be involved in every aspect of the project from design, to financing, to execution of the actual move. Although we moved into an existing location, we were given the opportunity to completely renovate the space to fit our needs.

The bulk of activities spanned approximately one year in which we met with architects, project planners, accountants, contractors, Xerox reps, etc. In the end, while not perfect, we got as good a result as we could have expected. Eighteen months later, we still love mostly everything about it.

Start With a Project List

Relocating a department requires more than just moving into the new space. Apart from the actual design of the facilities, you may want to take the opportunity to refresh your equipment. Meet with your representatives and get them involved.

How will the project be financed? If you aren't lucky enough to be given a donation, how will you pay back the loan? Have you engaged your employees? What else needs to be done to successfully transition to your new digs? Our project list had more than 50 items, ranging from financing to human resources, to which we applied time lines.

Get Your Staff Involved

Your staff will be the main users of the facilities, so keep them happy and things will go that much better. We each drew up initial layouts and showed them to the staff for their feedback. (They liked Abel's better, by the way.) Then we incorporated some of their recommendations. Two things they really liked was the employee lounge with a fully equipped kitchen, and large windows all around the shop.

ID Possible Negative Impacts

Being a healthcare institution, we identified some potential negative impacts that our transition into the new facility could cause and came up with a worst-case scenario. We identified forms as the most critical document that we produce for our organization. Without some of these forms, patient care would be affected as well as the productivity of our healthcare workers.

To resolve this issue, we overproduced forms that were deemed critical and maximized inventories at our warehousing sites. We produced, in some cases, three months' worth of stock. We also contacted some of our external suppliers and advised them of our situation, asking them to be on standby in case of any emergencies. Four months before the move we also contacted several of our most frequent users, and advised them to order larger amounts of goods to cope with a possible slowdown in service.

Moving Day

Since we were relocating two print shops into this new location we decided that we would be able to carry on business throughout the move by moving one shop at a time. With the collaboration of our Xerox partners and two other companies we managed to relocate completely over two weekends without affecting service at all.

Prior to the move, however, we sorted through all our supplies and discarded anything that had not been used for a long time and we were unlikely to use. Instead of throwing out old paper we donated it to our daycare facilities.

What We Learned

If we were to do it all again what would we do differently? Not much, actually. We were involved in every detail, thanks to the project managers who included us in their regular meetings with the contractors and professionals. Short of taking a course in how to install an HVAC system, we could not have done any more. This expensive system, unfortunately, has never worked properly, and the company that installed it has been avoiding us now that the warranty has expired. It will be fixed, I am certain, but at an additional cost.

Lessons Learned From Others

During our initial stage of planning, we visited an in-plant in Montreal that had just gone through a similar change, with the intention of learning from their experience. It turned out to be an excellent investment. The first thing we noticed was that paper was stored in many locations far from the point of use, requiring staff to travel considerably in order to retrieve it. The manager acknowledged that it was not ideal but they had space constraints.

Reducing Travel Distance

At that time we had just begun designing our new facility, and we were placing paper in a centralized location. With some simple modifications to our design, which included displacing several pieces of equipment and rearranging our paper locations, we reduced the distance that staff had to travel to retrieve paper by as much as 50 feet, with all of the high-volume paper conveniently located within eight feet of the equipment.

Lesson one had been learned: Map out the amount of movement an individual must do to complete a task and then ask yourself, "What can I do to reduce that wasted time?"

Lesson two was a great wake-up call. We asked the manager of that same in-plant to share with us what went wrong with the move and with the construction. Without flinching he replied that it had been an absolute nightmare. Among several issues, the worst was this: Once the construction was over and they moved into their new facility, they discovered that their electrical requirements had not been completed as specified, essentially rendering their two high-speed digital printers useless. The electricians had to return to correct the errors, which proved to be very costly and took several weeks to fix.

Continuously Validate

The lesson here was clear. Continuously validate all of your requirements and specs, whether they be electrical, space, furniture or any other aspects of your facility. On many occasions we caught errors while the construction workers were still completing the task. We went as far as taking pictures of each electrical outlet and validating them with the electricians. This paid off tremendously as wiring, amperage and outlets had been placed in the most bizarre locations and often did not match up. In some cases, outlets had been completely removed from our design specs.

Our advice is to not take anything for granted. Just because you submitted your specs and requirements doesn't guarantee that errors won't be made. Ask the people carrying out the work as many questions as possible; do not leave things to chance. Validate as much as you can on a daily basis.

We can honestly say that our planning, our involvement and our constant vigilance allowed for a very smooth transition. We were up and running within 48 hours of our first move into the new facility. The transition of services was completely transparent to the six hospitals we serve. We could say that we were very fortunate that it went so smoothly but we would like to think that it was more than fortune; rather, it was excellent planning.