Discover HB's New Warehouse and Learning Center
In 2016, Henriksen Butler Services of Utah said goodbye to our office and warehouse spaces on California Avenue, which we had occupied for nearly 13 years, and said hello to our new home.
We had three spaces with two occupied as offices, totaling approximately 14,000 square feet. With continued company growth, these spaces became inefficient and difficult to manage. The goal was to move to a larger space that more accurately reflected our brand. We were fortunate to find the perfect spot, our new home, at 5525 West 1730 South in Salt Lake City.
Our new location is approximately 23,000 square feet, 3,000 of which is office space as well as our new Learning Center. In our warehouse, we have a total of 540 pallet locations with additional room on the floor for larger pallets of furniture, as well as Spacesaver and DIRTT products. Our planned pallet count can go as high as 680 if needed. The warehouse now has five dock doors with two grade-level doors. Our old space had only two loading docks and three grade-level doors. The new layout for the warehouse separates the receiving and installation processes. This allows receiving to take place even when the installers are preparing orders and loading trucks. We use the additional 75 feet of space to apply our Herman Miller Performance Systems improvement principals to our receiving and warehouse processes. In other words, the well-thought-out design of the warehouse enables us to effectively and efficiently process product, avoiding issues with missing product, separate pieces, or homeless items.
To break the process down a bit more, the warehouse staff pulls orders and product based on the installation packets that are put together for the installers. With a 30 foot-wide working bay on the loading dock, there is now enough space for all orders to be pulled the afternoon before the scheduled installation. The appropriate product is placed in the bay, consolidated with all shipments, and checked to make sure that everything has been pulled for a complete order. Then the installers begin loading for their scheduled installations. There is now adequate space to prepare orders and load panels, carts and equipment. The product is efficiently packaged and clean when arriving on the customer site for the installation.
Our big move also facilitated improvements in our internal communication, paperwork, and our overall operational processes. This is a wonderful and much needed new space which allows us to carefully examine various ways to improve every aspect of our work. Just because we have always done something, it certainly does not mean it is perfect. This statement is very strong at HB Services and we will continue to look at everything we do and for ways to improve.
-Tony Coda, Principal, President HB Services
