Clas Ohlson: s DC – one step closer to heaven!

Clas Ohlson continues to defy the recession. On Nov. 11 the first shovel was put in the ground, in the small village of Insjön, to start the final phase of the extension of the Clas Ohlson distribution centre. This will be the first clad rack building and the highest and largest DC in Sweden.

With a height of 43,5 meters the pallet high bay of Clas Ohlson will be taller than all similiar installations in Scandinavia as well as most surrounding churches. Yesterday was a historic day in the small village of Insjön, where Clas Ohlson has it´s central warehouse, when CEO Klas Balkow together with Ulf Jansson of Moving AB put the first shovel in the ground for the future DC. Even though many other companies are facing recession and are afraid of investing, the success story of Clas Ohlson continues. It is not a coincidence that the new building is higher than ever, building on the ground is both costly and more complicated and it will be more time efficient to sort the merchandise vertical than horizontal.

According to Klas Balkow anybody can purchase 15 000 articles but when it comes to storing and distributing them in a highly efficient way Clas Ohlson has a competitive advantage through is highly automated DC.

Klas Balkow, Mats Skoglund and Ulf Jansson together when putting the the first shovel into the ground for the new pallet high bay.

New pallet high bay will be the first clad rack building in Sweden, which is a special building technology where the pallet racking is not only carrying the pallets but also the walls and the roof of the DC. Furthermore the DC will have automated stacker cranes for automatic handling of the pallets. Moving AB was chosen as general contractor for the new DC and has so far installed all automation in the Clas Ohlson DC from the first high bay to a Miniload storage and several solutions for efficient order picking.

According to Håkan Solarfs at Clas Ohlson the choice of Moving as a supplier felt absolutely right since their self-developed IT systems are tightly integrated with the Moving system. The development and commissioning has been going on for quite some time, so nowadays Clas Ohlson has a well-functioning and stable system. Clas Ohlson is looking very optimistic towards the future and with the planned expansion in Insjön it will be possible to service up to 150 stores, which initially aslo includes the expansion in Britain.

For further information, please contact:

Ulf Jansson, CEO, 042-56010, 0705-357104 ulf.jansson@moving.eu

Malin Schäfer, Marketing Manager, 042-56198, 070-6056198 malin.schaefer@moving.eu