October 11, 2004
Keeping cool | Oakhurst Dairy builds a $7 million cold storage facility next door to its Portland headquarters
By William Bennett
Vice president of operations, Oakhurst Dairy, Portland
The large, warehouse-like structure taking shape next to Oakhurst Dairy is by now a familiar sight for commuters and residents along Forest Avenue in Portland. At nearly 18,000 sq. ft., it is hard to miss. Our new facility, which will come online in early December, is essentially a giant cooler, where Oakhurst milk and other dairy products will be stored before being loaded onto trucks and trailers for distribution across northern New England. New raw-milk receiving bays are also being built on a part of this project.
It sounds simple, but there are a number of challenges in managing multi-state distribution of a perishable product like milk. The minute the product comes in the door for processing, the clock is ticking. And when you have built your reputation on quality and freshness, efficient space utilization becomes a critical component of your logistics. We had an added sense of urgency at the dairy following several years of double-digit growth that saw increased business not only in Maine, but in New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts as well. That growth meant that logistics at our Forest Avenue plant were beyond design capacity.
In fact, we are running as many as 120,000 gallons through the plant a day, six days a week. At that level, in our current facility, logistical capacity becomes a factor in deciding to pursue new business. In that situation, the decision to build is pretty straightforward. It simply becomes a need to be able to move more cases of product out the door each hour.
Making the decision to build was the easy part. Successfully completing a project while maintaining our current operations, however, required a great deal of effort. In building a new facility, we have a distinct challenge well understood by other downtown businesses ˆ space constraints. Bordered by neighboring businesses, I-295 and the University of Southern Maine, "buildable" space at the dairy's headquarters is at a premium. That reality has led us in the past to search for other parcels for building projects, but this time we chose not to look beyond the two-and-a-half-acre area surrounding our headquarters building.
The reasons for staying downtown are many. First and foremost, our dairy has stood on Forest Avenue for more than 80 years, so when we need to expand our distribution capabilities to keep up with growth, our commitment to staying downtown is always a consideration. We do have other facilities in Portland, as well as a new distribution center in Waterville and further plans for a depot in the New Hampshire or Massachusetts area, but Portland is our home. And even though we have expanded beyond Maine's borders, a huge portion of our business is right here in southern Maine. So from a logistical standpoint, having the new cooler on the same property as our filling rooms would be a big money saver, both in terms of initial construction and operating expenses.
After examining all our options, the decision was made to build the new cooler facility, along with upgraded facilities for receiving raw milk from farms, on a parcel of land next to the dairy that, at the time, was occupied by a Pizza Hut. Although the primary goal in the project is to allow the dairy to expand product storage and loadout capacity, we are hoping for added benefits in addressing trailer traffic on Forest Avenue and allowing us to better control scheduling for production runs and maintenance.
Form and function
As with any project of this scope, one of the first concerns for the dairy was working closely with abutters and the city of Portland to make sure everything was run smoothly and by the book.
It is a fairly substantial project in a high-density, high-traffic area, and we wanted to make sure that any disruptions were kept to a minimum. City officials have been great to work with and our neighbors have been fantastic ˆ Pier One and Bleachers have both been very supportive of our efforts, and we have done everything in our power to make sure their businesses have felt as little impact as possible.
One area the city has been involved with from the beginning is how the new cooler fits in with the distinct look of Forest Avenue. One thing nobody wants is a five-story vanilla box looming over one of Portland's main thoroughfares. We think that the architect, Portland-based Theriault & Landmann Associates, and the engineering firm, Facilities Design Inc. of Columbia, Penn., did a great job designing an interesting, dynamic building that will be an attractive addition to Forest Avenue.
When finished, the warehouse structure will be clad in a combination of metal, glass and brick-like masonry paneling. Our headquarters was designed in the International Style, which was a popular post-war American version of the famed German Bauhaus architectural movement, characterized by flat roofs, smooth facades and cubic shapes. There's no question that it has a unique look, and we did not want to detract from it or the surrounding area. We knew from the start that we wanted a building that was going to make a good impression.
While every effort was made to erect an attractive structure that added to the area, the cooler building has but one purpose: move as much dairy product out the door as efficiently and quickly as possible. That presented us with a design challenge. How do we keep costs down by not overbuilding now, but still make sure we have space to grow in the future? Another consideration is how we operate at peak efficiency while distracted by the construction and the effects it would have on our operations.
In terms of designing the building to work operationally, size and placement of the building were our primary concerns. After working with our neighbors and the city to address those issues, we had to turn inward to make sure that operationally we could handle the disruption a project of this magnitude can cause. Months before the decision to greenlight the project was made, we assembled a team at the dairy to assess the challenges and develop solutions.
Representatives from operations, distribution, engineering and IT have all contributed to a workable plan for success. Tom Carll, our chief engineer who is responsible for the day-to-day management of this project, has been instrumental in assessing our capabilities and needs in order to design and build an efficient cooler. Paul Connelly, the head of our IT division, has assumed much of the responsibility for tackling the development of a computerized warehouse management system that would make maximum use of the space we had and allow for future expansion.
The warehouse management system is critical, since our space considerations, combined with all the different expiration dates of our perishable product, make it no easy task to ensure that product gets where it needs to go, when it needs to get there. The teamwork that goes into successfully managing our daily operations was a real benefit when it came to launching the construction project.
The general contractor on the $7 million project is Ledgewood Inc. of South Portland. There are more than 20 subcontractors ˆ nearly all of them from Maine ˆ employed on the job site, and any given day could find 60 or more workers rushing the project to completion.
We are excited by the possibilities offered by the new cooler building. It has been a challenge undertaking a development project with such a large number of considerations ˆ space, blending architecturally with the neighborhood and the dramatic impact on our operations during construction ˆ but all of us at Oakhurst are committed to our long-term growth and success, and increased storage and distribution capacity is a cornerstone of achieving that.
The large, warehouse-like structure taking shape next to Oakhurst Dairy is by now a familiar sight for commuters and residents along Forest Avenue in Portland. At nearly 18,000 sq. ft., it is hard to miss. Our new facility, which will come online in early December, is essentially a giant cooler, where Oakhurst milk and other dairy products will be stored before being loaded onto trucks and trailers for distribution across northern New England. New raw-milk receiving bays are also being built on a part of this project.
It sounds simple, but there are a number of challenges in managing multi-state distribution of a perishable product like milk. The minute the product comes in the door for processing, the clock is ticking. And when you have built your reputation on quality and freshness, efficient space utilization becomes a critical component of your logistics. We had an added sense of urgency at the dairy following several years of double-digit growth that saw increased business not only in Maine, but in New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts as well. That growth meant that logistics at our Forest Avenue plant were beyond design capacity.
In fact, we are running as many as 120,000 gallons through the plant a day, six days a week. At that level, in our current facility, logistical capacity becomes a factor in deciding to pursue new business. In that situation, the decision to build is pretty straightforward. It simply becomes a need to be able to move more cases of product out the door each hour.
Making the decision to build was the easy part. Successfully completing a project while maintaining our current operations, however, required a great deal of effort. In building a new facility, we have a distinct challenge well understood by other downtown businesses ˆ space constraints. Bordered by neighboring businesses, I-295 and the University of Southern Maine, "buildable" space at the dairy's headquarters is at a premium. That reality has led us in the past to search for other parcels for building projects, but this time we chose not to look beyond the two-and-a-half-acre area surrounding our headquarters building.
The reasons for staying downtown are many. First and foremost, our dairy has stood on Forest Avenue for more than 80 years, so when we need to expand our distribution capabilities to keep up with growth, our commitment to staying downtown is always a consideration. We do have other facilities in Portland, as well as a new distribution center in Waterville and further plans for a depot in the New Hampshire or Massachusetts area, but Portland is our home. And even though we have expanded beyond Maine's borders, a huge portion of our business is right here in southern Maine. So from a logistical standpoint, having the new cooler on the same property as our filling rooms would be a big money saver, both in terms of initial construction and operating expenses.
After examining all our options, the decision was made to build the new cooler facility, along with upgraded facilities for receiving raw milk from farms, on a parcel of land next to the dairy that, at the time, was occupied by a Pizza Hut. Although the primary goal in the project is to allow the dairy to expand product storage and loadout capacity, we are hoping for added benefits in addressing trailer traffic on Forest Avenue and allowing us to better control scheduling for production runs and maintenance.
Form and function
As with any project of this scope, one of the first concerns for the dairy was working closely with abutters and the city of Portland to make sure everything was run smoothly and by the book.
It is a fairly substantial project in a high-density, high-traffic area, and we wanted to make sure that any disruptions were kept to a minimum. City officials have been great to work with and our neighbors have been fantastic ˆ Pier One and Bleachers have both been very supportive of our efforts, and we have done everything in our power to make sure their businesses have felt as little impact as possible.
One area the city has been involved with from the beginning is how the new cooler fits in with the distinct look of Forest Avenue. One thing nobody wants is a five-story vanilla box looming over one of Portland's main thoroughfares. We think that the architect, Portland-based Theriault & Landmann Associates, and the engineering firm, Facilities Design Inc. of Columbia, Penn., did a great job designing an interesting, dynamic building that will be an attractive addition to Forest Avenue.
When finished, the warehouse structure will be clad in a combination of metal, glass and brick-like masonry paneling. Our headquarters was designed in the International Style, which was a popular post-war American version of the famed German Bauhaus architectural movement, characterized by flat roofs, smooth facades and cubic shapes. There's no question that it has a unique look, and we did not want to detract from it or the surrounding area. We knew from the start that we wanted a building that was going to make a good impression.
While every effort was made to erect an attractive structure that added to the area, the cooler building has but one purpose: move as much dairy product out the door as efficiently and quickly as possible. That presented us with a design challenge. How do we keep costs down by not overbuilding now, but still make sure we have space to grow in the future? Another consideration is how we operate at peak efficiency while distracted by the construction and the effects it would have on our operations.
In terms of designing the building to work operationally, size and placement of the building were our primary concerns. After working with our neighbors and the city to address those issues, we had to turn inward to make sure that operationally we could handle the disruption a project of this magnitude can cause. Months before the decision to greenlight the project was made, we assembled a team at the dairy to assess the challenges and develop solutions.
Representatives from operations, distribution, engineering and IT have all contributed to a workable plan for success. Tom Carll, our chief engineer who is responsible for the day-to-day management of this project, has been instrumental in assessing our capabilities and needs in order to design and build an efficient cooler. Paul Connelly, the head of our IT division, has assumed much of the responsibility for tackling the development of a computerized warehouse management system that would make maximum use of the space we had and allow for future expansion.
The warehouse management system is critical, since our space considerations, combined with all the different expiration dates of our perishable product, make it no easy task to ensure that product gets where it needs to go, when it needs to get there. The teamwork that goes into successfully managing our daily operations was a real benefit when it came to launching the construction project.
The general contractor on the $7 million project is Ledgewood Inc. of South Portland. There are more than 20 subcontractors ˆ nearly all of them from Maine ˆ employed on the job site, and any given day could find 60 or more workers rushing the project to completion.
We are excited by the possibilities offered by the new cooler building. It has been a challenge undertaking a development project with such a large number of considerations ˆ space, blending architecturally with the neighborhood and the dramatic impact on our operations during construction ˆ but all of us at Oakhurst are committed to our long-term growth and success, and increased storage and distribution capacity is a cornerstone of achieving that.
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