Polysius Corporation, a German-owned ThyssenKrupp company, recently relocated its US headquarters from two floors to one floor of a Atlanta, Georgia high-rise building and designed the space for efficiency.
By downsizing their offices by 50 percent, the move allowed them to stay in the upscale building while reducing lease costs and overhead. Facility planners took the opportunity to take a fresh approach to their space and not only improve efficiency, but also improve workflow and design a more upscale, professional appearance to the offices.
"Our lease was coming due and we decided to stay in our current building but to try to find a way to reduce our lease costs," explained Michael Dowell, manager of human resources and administration. "We decided that consolidating would also allow us to bring the engineering department together and facilitate communication."
With an open design concept with very few walls and as many as 7,000 binders to store, Polysius needed a creative storage solution to help them achieve their space design goals.
The company utilized three Spacesaver high-density mobile storage systems to condense infrequently accessed engineering reference materials to free up room for more workspace. In addition, more than 100 Spacesaver stationary shelving ranges are located throughout the space to store more active use items.
"We did what was necessary to get mobile systems in the footprint and improve our space efficiency," said Dowell. "We even had the architect modify the floor plan and move walls to accommodate the mobile systems."
Extensive calculations were done to determine the structural support needed for mobile systems. The significant weight load of the consolidated materials introduced floor loading concerns that were solved utilizing creative problem solving by the local Spacesaver representative. Carbon fiber strips were stretched across support beams and secured with epoxy to disperse the weight load under the floor.
"The architect suggested Spacesaver and we trusted their experience," said Dowell. "They were not aware of any other company other than Spacesaver that could solve our structural problems."
Strategically positioned, double-sided case-type stationary shelving ranges, located around the perimeter and throughout the open-office workspaces, store highly accessed project reference materials and engineering data close to where they are utilized, while also providing a room divider between office groupings.
"We utilized the shelving ranges to provide natural barriers between different divisions within the organization," explained Dowell. "Our organization is structured in project teams that need to have shared access to materials. The stationary shelving allows us to locate project materials near the team workspaces and provides privacy screening." Dowell explained that thousands of binders are successfully stored throughout the facility on Spacesaver mobile or stationary shelving.
"Everyone loves the mobile systems and shelving," he said. "It has worked out well and keeps things at our fingertips and everyone is more organized than before."
