The 10,000 square meter investment was made necessary due to the constantly growing market share of the Hungarian spa manufacturer, which aims for international excellence.
This spring Wellis has opened a 10,000 square meter, single-floor, high-stack warehouse at its premises in Dabas, Hungary, at the site, which already featured 24,000 square meters of developed facilities in the form of a lightweight warehouse. The building has a length of 162.54 meters, with both the roofing and siding constructed of trapezoidal sheet metal.
The warehouse also features the following units:
- 300 sq m loading dock with two ramps
- 1,000 sq m delivery area, providing for the complete servicing of buyers and suppliers
- packaging facility, supporting the repackaging and boxing of products as well as web shop sales
- office and social spaces
The warehouse is able to house 4,000 spas, as opposed to the previously used 5,000 sq m storage, which can accommodate 1,200 spas. Additionally, the warehouse will also be perfectly suitable for storing sanitary supplies.
The design of the racks will allow for storing hot tubs on three different levels up to a height of seven meters, moving them with special machines and adapters. Hot tubs weigh an average of 350 kg with dimensions of 2m x 2 m, therefore it's important to provide for their mobility. Perfect handling will be ensured at the warehouse through the use of forklifts and order-picking forklift trucks.
Servicing the summer boom requires year-round manufacturing and storage
The growing sanitary market share and gradually increasing pool sales of Wellis necessitated the expansion of the warehouse capacity. The current 10,000-pool production capacity will be supplemented by a range of sanitary supplies numbering in the tens of thousands.
"We'd like to provide a stock for the complete servicing of buyers and partners alike, which is why we began physically expanding our capacities at the end of last year," said Viktor Monok, head of warehousing at Wellis, in the firm's recent statement.
"Although in the case of hot tubs and swim spas, we're dealing with seasonal products, the manufacturing must be continued throughout the year. In order to provide for the complete, buyer-oriented servicing of the peak season between May and September, all months of the year must be devoted to manufacturing, not to mention providing year-long employment for the company's 500 employees."
"Warehouses are usually a necessary evil for manufacturing firms since apart from providing for profitable activities, it must also arrange for the appropriate storage of raw materials and finished products. The current stock, as well as the foreseeable growth, led us to opt for the investment. Our plans also include devoting some of the extra warehousing capacity to leased storage in the future," added Viktor Monok.
