Our move is complete – everything isn’t quite put away yet, but we shipped our last product out the door last Friday night from our old facility and yesterday, the first shipment left our new facility. Our goal was to make this move completely transparent to our customer base – no interruption in service, and I am proud to report that we did not miss a single shipping day.
Clearfield’s employee teams are top notch – our IT staff worked nearly non-stop for a month, giving up weekends and working late most nights (thanks families!). Engineering and manufacturing carefully packed and unpacked every piece of equipment. Warehouse and production personnel ensured staging, and WIP was planned for and ready to go throughout the move.
We also had the help of some top-notch outside resources who have helped us to find the most value for our investment. There are too many to name here, but if you’re looking for a referral on a real estate adviser, mover, electrician, plumber, general contractor, painter, furniture or signage…give me a call – we’ve worked with the best.
Granted, it’s bittersweet to be moving from our Plymouth, MN offices, where we’ve been headquartered since our inception. But change is good, and the changes in store for us in our new state-of-the-art, 70,000+ square foot facility are far better than merely good. We have carefully planned every square foot in the build-out to insure that our new space is going to be great.
The new facility is as modular and scalable as our product line. We’ll actually have room. Room to work. And room to grow. Previously, we had inventory stored in multiple off-site locations. We’ve had to cut through walls of adjacent office areas for cable cutting, and added onto our space three times. We had a patchwork quilt – but it was an old-fashioned quilt made out of rags (not the pretty designer ones of today).
We’re walking the walk. Every device in our new building is connected to fiber for the fastest performing network at the lowest possible cost. Using FieldShield, there isn’t a single fiber splice in the building, translating into a very quick and cost-effective means of service turn-up. (Look to future blogs to hear more about the cost savings and performance advantages of operating this network!)
The new address is 7050 Winnetka Ave. North, Minneapolis. Stop in and see us sometime.