Today and tomor­row, Suo­mi Teline aims to be the cus­tomer-friend­liest scaffolding sup­pli­er in Fin­land. The facil­i­ties at the Karhuko­r­pi indus­tri­al estate in Nur­mi­järvi play a major role in achiev­ing this objec­tive.

As tai­lored scaffolding solu­tions and weath­er protection are sent out and returned every day, high qual­i­ty is required in both the design and the run­ning of the yard and the ware­house.

“Func­tion­al­i­ty, occu­pa­tion­al safe­ty, and space man­age­ment are the focus of our ware­house and yard design. We empha­sise them in our dai­ly work,” says Jere Siep­po, Suo­mi Teline’s direc­tor of sales.

Suo­mi Teline has oper­at­ed at its cur­rent loca­tion in Nur­mi­järvi since the spring of 2019. The plot is 6,500 m2 in size with 1,200 m2 of ware­house and office space.

The ware­house includes a break room, tar­pau­lin han­dling facil­i­ties, acces­so­ry stor­age, and a work­shop. The offices house com­pa­ny admin­is­tra­tion, offer and bid cal­cu­la­tion, and scaffolding sales. The build­ing also has meet­ing rooms and offices for super­vi­sors.

“We have plen­ty of ware­house space. We’ve grown con­sid­er­ably and increased our scaffolding stock to keep up with new busi­ness. We con­sid­ered expand­ing the plot, but that’s a zero-sum game: when our sales­peo­ple suc­ceed, our stock will be on the move, but we do have to make sure that all our facil­i­ties can keep up with the needs of our growth.”

Accord­ing to Siep­po, the main fac­tor for logis­tics is the loca­tion next to the Tam­pere motor­way. Many ALFIX scaffolding cus­tomers are locat­ed out­side the Helsin­ki met­ro­pol­i­tan area.

“We can make deliv­er­ies from our sales stock with rel­a­tive ease to the east and west, and north and south are an absolute breeze.”

“Our sales may get a call at half past four in the after­noon for set­ting up a 7 a.m. deliv­ery. In this case, it’s bet­ter for the customer’s sched­ule that we’re fur­ther away from down­town Helsin­ki. Our loca­tion close to the Helsin­ki met­ro­pol­i­tan area by the Tam­pere motor­way puts us close to all our cus­tomers,” says Jere Siep­po.

Nur­mi­järvi also serves Suo­mi Teline’s own con­tract­ing work. Both mate­ri­als and work­ers can be deliv­ered swift­ly to work­sites, most­ly locat­ed in and around the Helsin­ki met­ro­pol­i­tan area.

Clean and organ­ised

Most of the plot’s area is used for stor­age. For exam­ple, there may be five loads arriv­ing and depart­ing dur­ing a work­day, so keep­ing the yard clean and order­ly is nec­es­sary for both occu­pa­tion­al safe­ty and smooth logis­tics.

“We receive mate­ri­als in the mid­dle of the yard and dis­trib­ute them to the cor­rect stor­age areas. The out­go­ing mate­ri­als are locat­ed on the right side of the gate when you come in. The stream of mate­ri­als nev­er stops, but the peak sea­son for deliv­er­ies is ear­ly sum­mer and the returns start in earnest in Octo­ber.”

Jere Siep­po rais­es the man­age­ment of ice and snow as the cur­rent top­ic. In the win­ter months, yard main­te­nance is increas­ing­ly impor­tant as more equip­ment is in stor­age and the pas­sages become nar­row­er. It is nat­u­ral­ly haz­ardous to dri­ve a fork­lift around an icy yard, so ice and snow man­age­ment is an impor­tant safe­ty issue as well.

Suo­mi Teline’s ware­house and equip­ment are looked after by a ware­house man­ag­er and ware­house­man. Hav­ing in-house employ­ees is reflect­ed in high qual­i­ty and good clean­li­ness.

“Peo­ple care for their job and iden­ti­fy strong­ly as com­pa­ny employ­ees. When busi­ness process­es have strong own­ers, things feel more imme­di­ate and every­thing works bet­ter,” says Siep­po.