The redeveloped headquarters site of Claas UK and its East Anglian dealer Manns of Saxham alongside the A14 near Bury St Edmunds is officially up and running.
Opened by chairwoman of the supervisory board Cathrina Claas-Mühlhäuser, work on the redevelopment of the site, at the centre of which is the new 33,000m² state-of-the-art headquarters building, commenced in November 2017.
In addition to offices for both Claas UK and Manns, the new 16.5m-high building incorporates a full height, glass fronted Technoparc machinery showroom. A field training and demonstration area is also being developed to complete a Customer Experience Centre, and the Saxham site is also home to the Claas Academy.
“The new building vastly improves the experience for customers and visitors from the UK, Ireland and around the world,” says Trevor Tyrrell, senior vice-president (western Europe & Oceania) for the Claas Group’s sales and service division, who adds that customers are welcome to use the new on-site Seasons restaurant.
Trevor Tyrrell, senior vice-president (western Europe & Oceania) for the Claas Group’s sales and service division.
Customers are welcome to use the new on-site Seasons restaurant.
The new headquarters building makes use of the latest energy efficient systems. The passive solar design features a full height glazed facade, and the building incorporates 2,860m² of glass.
Renewably generated electric power and heating for the whole site is sourced from the neighbouring 1.4mW Symonds Farm AD plant. Power for the electric car charging points on site comes from a photo voltaic solar panel array on the roof generating 112mWh.
A water harvesting system with a total capacity of 30,000 litres serves a specially designed washdown bay for machinery, saving over one million litres of water a year.
New central parts warehouse
To the rear of the office building is a new 10-bay workshop complex for Manns and a 4,336m² parts warehouse for Claas UK.
The new parts warehouse has streamlined parts handling and replaces five individual buildings. It accommodates over 47,000 line items or 850,000 individual items totalling 700t, with space to spare for future expansion.
For larger items there is now 45m of cantilever racking and the amount of bulk racking has been doubled, while a mezzanine area holds 70% of the total contents of the previous warehouse over three levels.
All parts are identified and located using a scan and bar code system to help improve pick rate accuracy and efficiency for the 1,000 tonnes of parts that pass through the warehouse each year.
“The new offices, showrooms, modern parts logistics warehouse and more efficient workshop environment allow us to make far better overall use of the site, which will have an impact on the recruitment and retention of employees, in addition to a considerable improvement in Health and Safety procedures,” comments Mr Tyrrell.
“By supporting this major redevelopment and impressive new building, both the Claas Group and the Claas family have shown their commitment to Claas dealers, their customers and UK agriculture as a whole, and also to Bury St Edmunds and west Suffolk where we are now one of the largest employers.”
