Part 2 of 3: Making sure the building works with your manufacturing operation, rather than getting in its way.
You've found a building that can power your machinery and handle the technical demands of manufacturing. Brilliant. That's a pretty important first step.
But having everything in the right building doesn't necessarily mean it's in the right place.
Imagine spending a significant amount on a new automated production line, only to discover that materials have to travel halfway around the facility before they can even reach it.
Not quite the efficient new headquarters you had in mind.
If you're considering a new facility, our Office Fit-Out Readiness Assessment is a useful starting point for organising the wider project. It can help you establish whether you've got a clear brief before moving into detailed planning, although manufacturing-specific layouts will need their own technical assessment.
In Part 1, we looked at getting the building's infrastructure right.
Now we're looking at what happens inside and around it. Essentially, making sure the operation works as well in real life as it does on the floorplan.
Automation is becoming a bigger part of modern manufacturing, and it's easy to see why.
A robotic system that can handle repetitive processes without someone constantly supervising it sounds pretty appealing. Particularly when you're trying to increase output without making the operation more complicated.
But while the technology itself gets most of the attention, the building around it has a rather important job to do.
Take an autonomous mobile robot, for example. It might be perfectly capable of moving materials between workstations without anyone pushing a trolley. Very clever.
But if its route involves narrow corridors or constantly crossing busy pedestrian areas, you're not exactly making its life easy.
The same goes for an automated production line. It might be capable of producing components at an impressive rate, but if the materials aren't arriving when they're needed, that capability isn't being put to much use.
Otherwise, you've invested in a very expensive piece of equipment that spends more time waiting than working.
At Shoal Group's 85,000 sq ft headquarters in Luton, automation formed part of the new warehouse operation.
The facility incorporated a Geek+ robotic picking system within its 70,000 sq ft warehouse, supporting the business's picking and packing activities.
But the new headquarters wasn't simply a warehouse with some robots added.
It brought previously separate operations together into one facility. That meant the building had to accommodate the wider business while providing an environment suitable for its automated warehouse operation.
It's a good example of why automation needs to be considered during building planning, rather than treated as something that can be worked around later.
Before committing to a layout, it's worth understanding what the equipment needs to achieve and how it will interact with the rest of the operation.
The International Federation of Robotics provides examples of how robotics is being used across manufacturing and logistics, but the important consideration for any business is whether its proposed facility can properly support the technology it intends to use.
Let's say your raw materials arrive at the loading bay and are moved into storage.
So far, so good.
But when production needs them, they have to travel all the way back across the warehouse to reach the machines. Once they're finished, the products take another rather scenic route before they're ready for dispatch.
Congratulations. Your products have seen more of the headquarters than most of your employees.
It sounds a little ridiculous, but poor material flow can become a genuine problem in manufacturing facilities.
Every unnecessary journey takes time. And when you're moving large volumes of products every day, those additional movements soon start to add up.
That's why the building layout should follow the manufacturing process rather than simply filling the available space.
It's something worth considering when organisations consolidate operations into a single headquarters.
At Shoal Group, the relocation brought three existing locations into one building. The new facility combined warehousing and light production with the wider office operation.
Projects like this highlight why understanding how different business functions use the building is important before deciding where everything should go.
A useful exercise is to follow a product through the operation on paper.
Where does it enter the building? What happens to it before production starts? And is there an obvious way to get it from one process to the next without unnecessary handling?
You might realise the proposed layout involves materials doubling back across the facility, or that a storage area would be much more useful closer to production.
It's much easier to move something on a floorplan than after the equipment has been installed.
Access sounds like a fairly straightforward part of building design.
You've got a car park. There are some loading doors. Job done.
Except a busy manufacturing facility might have deliveries arriving throughout the day while forklifts are moving materials inside. And somewhere amongst all that, employees are trying to get to work without accidentally joining the warehouse operation.
It's not difficult to see how things could become a bit chaotic if the routes haven't been considered properly.
There's an obvious safety issue here, too.
The Health and Safety Executive's workplace transport guidance recommends separating pedestrians from vehicle movements wherever possible.
In practice, that means considering how the building will actually be used, not simply whether there's enough room for a vehicle to get through the gate.
At Atlas Copco Group's 55,000 sq ft headquarters in Hemel Hempstead, Habit Action brought five business divisions together within a single building that also accommodated workshop and warehouse facilities.
It was a much broader project than creating new office space. Different parts of the business needed to operate within the same headquarters, each with their own requirements.
For manufacturers planning a similar consolidation, access needs to be considered as part of that wider operational picture.
A loading bay might be large enough for the delivery vehicles you use, but is it positioned sensibly in relation to the warehouse? Can staff reach their workplace without walking through busy material handling routes?
Even the position of a doorway can make a difference.
And these are far easier things to resolve while the design is still being developed.
You can fill a manufacturing headquarters with sophisticated machinery and clever robotics. But if people are constantly walking around obstacles or materials are travelling unnecessary distances, something isn't working.
The best facilities aren't necessarily the ones with the most automation.
They're the ones where the building supports the operation without everyone having to think too hard about it.
That starts with understanding how the business actually works, rather than designing a layout and hoping the operation will adapt to it.
Our work with manufacturers such as Shoal Group demonstrates the value of bringing the operational requirements into the planning process from the beginning, instead of treating them as a separate problem to solve once the building is ready.
At Habit Action, we help advanced manufacturing organisations plan and deliver facilities around how their businesses need to operate.
Speak to our team if you're considering a new manufacturing headquarters.
So, you've got the machinery running and the layout works.
What happens when the business grows?
In Part 3, we'll look at how manufacturers can plan for future expansion without finding themselves searching for another headquarters in a few years' time.
Because moving into a brand-new building is exciting. Having to do it all again because you've already outgrown it? Slightly less so.