Project Requirements

BuyItdirect is one of the UK’s largest e-commerce retailers, operating a number of brands including Laptops Direct and Furniture 123.

Expanding quickly, they came to us with a requirement to act as principal contractor on a project to “fit out” and pallet rack a new warehouse in Castle Donnington. – bringing their total space to over 2 million square feet.

The challenge? The project was not only large scale, but would need to be completed as quickly as possible in order that the new warehouse could be operational in the shortest possible time  following its acquisition.

The scale

BuyItdirect’s new warehouse was 550,000 square feet and we installed:-

80,000 new pallet locations.

Roof and in rack and sprinkler system, including an external water storage tank.

Lighting.

Fire detection systems.

HVAC Systems.

A six month timescale was proposed for the project, with the goal of bringing it into use as quickly as possible.

Our solution

With BuyItdirect’s key goal of rapid utilisation and our turnkey approach to projects, we were able to offer a solution to put the warehouse in use even before the completion of the project.

As we installed the lighting racking, we enabled BuyItdirect to begin backfilling behind our qualified contractors – meaning the lead time from project commencement completion was brought in on time within a 26 week schedule.

Compliance without hassle

Speed and scale weren’t the only challenges our team overcame for BuyItdirect.

A project of this size requires compliance with Construction and Design Management (CDM) regulations, to ensure safety on site for all contractors, Buyitdirect employees and visitors.

We managed and delivered all of the compliance elements on behalf of and in collaboration with BuyItdirect – ensuring that the project could run smoothly without risk.

An end-to-end solution

Our fit-out went beyond racking

All of our project managers are SMSTS qualified and have a deep understanding of CDM regulations, together with years of practical experience within our industry. They maintain a close relationship with the client’s suppliers and contractors throughout the fit-out.

From the start of a project, they liaise with suppliers to ensure required delivery timescales can be achieved, developing detailed Gantt charts outlining every step of the process giving full transparency to all stakeholders.

Once the  fit-out began they were on-site every day – and were always on hand to discuss every aspect of the project with BuyItdirect as work was carried out.

The outcome

BuyItdirect’s warehouse fit out went smoothly, with the absolute minimum of time when the warehouse space was not usable thanks to the backfill process we enabled for them.

A combination of our deep industry knowledge, our highly skilled project managers, large pool of qualified installers and contractors and flexible work schedules, (extended 12 hours shifts being introduced ) enabled BuyItdirect to both operate from the warehouse during fit out and achieve a fully operational warehouse as quickly as possible and of course on time and on budget, as promised.