Crown Relocation Brings Everything Under One Roof

Crown Equipment in Australia recently completed a large head office relocation project to gather all of its departments under one roof and bring significant benefits to employees, customers and the environment. Crown, which is one of the world’s largest material handling companies, had been previously operating from seven separate buildings.

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The new corporate head office, located at 15 Cooper Street Smithfield, accommodates Crown’s current requirements with enough undeveloped land on the site to cater for future growth.  The new corporate headquarters also provides Crown with the opportunity to undertake a fitout that was environmentally sound, technologically advanced and employee-friendly.

According to Paul Jackson, vice president, Pacific Rim, Crown Equipment, the company had experienced more than a decade of continuous growth that saw it having to expand to various locations within the Smithfield area.

“We knew we had to go through a period where we would need to increase the number of buildings we operated from as we added staff and increased our range of services until such time as the perfect location became available for a total consolidation.  We were constantly on the lookout for a major facility coming onto the market that would suit our purposes,” said Jackson.

Crown found that facility when Blackwoods, an Australian maintenance, repair and operational workplace requirements supplier, decided to relocate from Smithfield to Greystanes in Western Sydney.

“As an organisation, Blackwoods shared a number of key similarities with Crown in that they had a large workforce and a large stock of inventory. To accommodate these requirements, their facility was a blend of office, warehouse, parking and open spaces. It suited our needs exactly,” added Jackson.

Johann Cebbar, Crown’s facilities manager in Australia, managed the transition to the new facility. According to Cebbar, the physical building had been exceedingly well built and maintained.

“The actual skeleton of the building was designed and constructed with thick concrete, which is ideal when looking at basic insulation properties. Our main challenge was to build on this platform, to reconfigure it and create an environment that would work equally well for our staff and the environment,” said Cebbar.

The new head office facility is built on a 55,000m2 site comprising a 5,500m2 office complex, plus two warehouses of a combined 21,000m2 area, and a further 10,000m2 of land for future development.

Staff are accommodated over three levels, with a main kitchen/lunchroom plus breakout rooms with kitchens on each floor. There are also five video training rooms, a dedicated service training room and three boardrooms, each capable of seating over 20 people.

There is also a new forklift driver training facility housed in a purpose-designed model warehouse where the company will now be running its registered training organisation (RTO) driver training and refresher driver training courses.

In alignment with Crown’s global ecologic program, the fitout had many environmental considerations. As examples, carpets are made from new and recycled fibre, tinting is on all windows, and LED lighting is used where possible. Another environmental feature is the use of DALI (digitally addressable lighting interface) lighting in most areas. DALI lighting is a system connected to the network that is capable of infinite adjustment and that uses time schedules, switches and sensors to control general and emergency lighting requirements.

As well as the technologically advanced DALI lighting system, Crown has opted for state-of-the-art technology in its new telephone system, video conferencing facilities, fire control systems as well as business continuity and disaster recovery hardware and software solutions.

With over 250 on-site parking spots plus a major regional transport hub immediately behind the new facility, staff have no issues in easily travelling to and from work.

“Crown’s new Sydney facility has afforded us the opportunity to achieve a number of important things,” concluded Jackson. “It brought us all together under one roof. It created the opportunity for employees who have only ever spoken with colleagues on the phone to actually meet face-to-face.  It gave us the opportunity to further implement our environmental strategies, and it now gives an even more cohesive experience between employees and customers to enhance our delivery of products and services to them and continue our status as Australia’s number one lift truck supplier for electric lift trucks.”