THE BIGGEST KEY ACCOUNT PROJECT EVER DELIVERED ZALANDO - DHL IN MADRID

Just an hour’s drive from Madrid airport, we find the 30,000 m2 distribution center of logistics and transport company DHL where they provide storage for Zalando, which is active in the online sale of shoes, clothing and fashion accessories. No less than 1 million items can be stored in this mega hall on shelves, supplied by NEDCON, which are located over 4 floors. By means of the pick tower supplied by us, the packages can be easily moved downstairs. Let’s find out even more about this fantastic NEDCON project. Vamos!

By Marco Scheuter

THE LARGEST KEY ACCOUNT PROJECT EVER DELIVERED: THE WAREHOUSE FOR DHL & ZALANDO NEAR MADRID!

Last year, March 2020, NEDCON received a declaration of intent from DHL Spain to partner with us for the construction of a pick tower consisting of 4 levels for their end customer Zalando in the Madrid region. In the already existing hall, DHL is already taking care of logistics activities for Zalando at that time.

A complex sales process

Jerry Lauers (BU Manager XLprojects): ‘’Partly due to the success of the project that was realized for Zalando in Sweden, we were selected for the Zalando/ DHL project in Madrid. The price negotiations were difficult and complex because Zalando negotiated in the process and the contract was finally concluded with DHL. An Efectis study (fire study) took place beforehand, which delayed the entire project by 4 months. In the end there was a new price negotiation and we could start.’’

Is Black Friday achievable?

Marco Scheuter (Project Manager): ‘’From the start of the project it was clear that we had a pretty challenging schedule ahead of us; the start of the installation was planned for week 18 and everything then had to be built in a time frame of about 20 weeks. All with the goal of having a fully functioning warehouse before the start of Black Friday. This meant that from the time of receiving the order to the start of the installation, there were about 10 weeks available. During the first few weeks, it quickly became clear to the project team that some things and instances would simply take time and would not be controlled by anything or anyone. First there was the usual coordination regarding a final layout. Then came a complete fire-study which had to be done and finally approved by the Spanish authorities.

Specifications of this project:

■ Warehouse area: 30.000 m2 ■ Installation lead time: 30 weeks ■ Project installed in 3 phases ■ Picktower installed ■ 100.000 shelves divided over 4 levels ■ 2000 tons of steel processed

‘’For the fire-study we contacted Efectis, as Jerry also indicated,’’ says Marco. ‘’This company is skilled in such studies, and NEDCON had already gained experience with them in previous projects. Together we set up a plan on how to achieve a thorough report as quickly as possible that could be submitted to the Spanish authorities for approval. By agreeing well in advance with Efectis what we should take into account in our choice of profile, we were able to save the necessary time. But all in all such a study still takes about 3 to 4 months, so we had to adjust our planning.’’

‘’Slowly but surely during the month of March it became clear how this trajectory would look like and what this would mean for the lead time of the project. Having a fully operational warehouse by Black Friday would not work and so this was adjusted to a realistic schedule, where the project was divided into 3 blocks. The new schedule: start assembly in week 39 of 2021 and completion of the entire warehouse was set for week 25 in 2022.’’

Controversial engineering

Lieuwe Verhaag (Project Engineer): ‘’For me personally, this was the biggest project I ever did the engineering for, together with Martin Vyborny. It was wonderful to be involved from the very beginning. For this project, we did not - for the first time - use continuous profiles (in x-direction) in the aisles, but we only made use of cross braces on which our chipboard floor rests. These cross braces are based on our standard open box diagonals. This way of building a picktower was controversial at NEDCON and some colleagues had to be convinced in the beginning.’’

‘’We were able to save a lot of steel this way and another advantage was that we produce these open box diagonals ourselves,’’ says Lieuwe. ‘’The final result is that we are now using this in several projects, like for example at Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof GmbH and at our new project Otto - NEON Warenverteilzentrum Ilowa. How great!’’

32000 installation hours

A total of 32000 hours were reported for the installation of this project. It was therefore a challenge beforehand to find the right subcontractor and Site Manager for this project. In the end the installation company Euromontur from Spain was chosen.

René van ‘t Hof (Installation Manager): ‘’The reason we chose a Spanish subcontractor was because of the regulations in Spain. Many subcontractors who are not from Spain have difficulty complying with the regulations in Spain. A second point that was taken into account was the language. Our client DHL’s employees speak limited English and we don’t speak Spanish, so what could be better than a Spanish speaking subcontractor? In addition, the availability of our own supervisors with the right credentials was an issue and as a result we chose to hire

the experienced Site Manager Danny Coetser Kruis. For the first 4 weeks of construction, Jetsko Borg taught Danny the ropes.’’

Installation in operational warehouse

Danny Coetser Kruis (Site Supervisor): ‘’My first project with Nedcon was Zalando and I was happy to be back in Spain for Many reasons such as the food the weather and the happy people. I was lucky to work with a great team from both Nedcon and DHL and communication and cooperation was great throughout. Working in a Active warehouse always comes with many obstacles of which access and space is primary concern but with the flexibility of a good installation team we overcame all issues.’’

How did the customer experience the project?

Salvador Nieto Muñoz (Operations Excellence at DHL Madrid): ‘’Our client Zalando already had a very good experience with NEDCON on another project, so it’s not surprising that we got in touch for this one. From this distribution center we serve our customers in Spain but we also do parts of Italy. In the future we might also do Portugal.’’

‘’We now have 1 million items in stock here, but in the future this number will be increased to 5 million,’’ says Rafael Perez Martinez (add position). ‘’On average, 4 trucks of packages leave from this warehouse on a day. This sounds little for a warehouse where so many products are stored, but the packages we send are small.’’

People Management on point

Rafael: ‘’It’s not easy to find people at the moment, and I’m sure it won’t be any different in the Netherlands. I think that as an employer we are really involved with our people and that’s where we make the difference. For example, our General Manager is regularly on the shop floor in the warehouse and talks to employers to hear how they are doing. Events are often organized or snacks are brought around the warehouse. We also start every morning at 8 o’clock with a warmup, which immediately creates a good atmosphere. We see that the employee turnover is not high in our company, which will also have something to do with this.’’

Installation performance

‘’We have experienced the installation period as positive. There was a very good contact with your Supervisor on site, Danny, who we could count on,’’ said Salvador. ‘’He managed almost 50 people at one point (he often took on the management of other parties as well!) and therefore it was definitely not an easy project to manage, but he got it done. The biggest challenge for him was that part of the building was just in use so the installation had to be done around that. The installation of phase 1 was easy because there was enough space, but for phases 2 and 3 it was more difficult because our colleagues were orderpicking as usual.’’

Clientes contentos

Salvador: ‘’There are plans to expand in Spain. Perhaps that will happen in this building, but it may also be that a new depot will be moved into. That is not clear yet. From the above story, it is clear that we definitely want to do business with NEDCON again!’’ Marco: ‘’I would like to thank everyone who has contributed in any way to this wonderful project. As you can see on the pictures it looks very good and what is certainly not unimportant; a very satisfied customer!’’ ■