Challenges

• Office Depot occupied three separate buildings on a corporate campus in Delray Beach, Florida. The new headquarters in Boca Raton, located approximately three miles from the current headquarters, consists of 630,000 square feet in the form of three, connected five-story buildings.
• The move was scheduled to take place over one month, including the Thanksgiving Holiday. This tight schedule was a challenge for the AOS USA, Inc. and Office Depot project management team due to the size (2000+ employees) and number of locations.
• Logistics of destination buildings were a challenge. The north building has a big loading dock, the central building has no loading dock, and the south building has only one loading dock at street level.
• AOS worked closely with the movers and the Office Depot Building Engineers to ensure the most efficient plan possible with the least amount of disruption to staff. This was important because pre-moves and employee moves took place during business hours as well as after hours.
• In order to meet the move deadlines and stay on schedule, the AOS USA, Inc. and Office Depot project team had to make quick decisions and stick with them, including freezing employee move changes after a given deadline to prevent the team from falling into a reactive mode and to reduce costs.
• The team did identify necessary customizations (for specific departments) to the standard floor plate. This added further time pressure, but saved Office Depot money in the long run.
• The furniture manufacturer assigned a full-time employee to the site during the furniture installation period beginning six months before the move.
• In the end, the team facilitated a seamless transition for the Office Depot employees into a new state-of-the-art headquarters.

Value Added

• AOS assisted the client with planning their relocation in the most cost efficient way, despite the many challenges.
• In addition, AOS remained flexible, not only throughout the planning process but right on into the implementation of the actual relocation phase as well.
• The biggest value was AOS' ability to enable communication among a cohesive team and help Office Depot get organized by providing their employees with as much information as possible. This approach helped ease the change management process.

Key Figures

Business Section         Corporate
Client Contact               Mr. Jerry Wicklander
Contact Info                  561-438-7872
Space (sq. ft.)              630,000
Employees                    2,000+

Services 

• Project & Relocation Management
• Space Planning
• Master Schedule
• Mover Selection
• FF&E Coordination / Filing & Shelving
• Move Coordination & Supervision
• Move Hot Line
• Change Management Assistance