DHL Global Forwarding
Architect: Andreas TreuschIn early February 2006, logistics services provider DHL Global Forwarding moved to its new headquarters at architect Andreas Treusch’s Air Cargo Center. The daylight-flooded open-space office right at Vienna International Airport was fitted out by Bene.
DHL, whose name consists of its founders’ initials, looks back on an amazing success story. It was only a few months after Neil Armstrong was first to set foot on the moon that Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom and Robert Lynn started to act on a business idea that was to have a worldwide impact on its operations in 1969. At the beginning, they would personally hop on a plane to take documents from San Francisco to Honolulu in order to initiate the customs clearance of a ship freight before its actual arrival. This reduced idle times at the port as well as associated costs significantly and was to become a concept that immediately turned immensely successful. Today DHL Global Forwarding is global leader in express and logistics services.
The company is represented at seven locations in Austria. Approximately 370 people ensure fast and reliable service and transport of express consignments, air and sea freight, packaged goods and container loads in more than 220 countries worldwide. For that reason, it is not surprising that DHL, i.e. its Global Forwarding branch, has now also expanded its location at Vienna airport: Architect Andreas Treusch’s Air Cargo Center allows state-of-the-art, flexible freight dispatch without any criss-crossing flows of materials.
Open and efficient
The company and its approximately 52 employees moved into the new open-space office on the third floor of the Air Cargo Center in early 2006. The desired efficiency of space utilisation was achieved by a clear structure: The workstations are rounded at the user’s side and were configured in blocks for four people and placed along the row of windows.
Bene’s B9 desks with sliding tops ensure perfect cable management. Each staff member disposes of a mobile K2 Caddy to store personal documents. DHL has opted for acoustic screening in the form of Table Panels light which serve as an organiser element at the same time. The panels also allow attachment of flatscreen brackets so that desk space can be put to full use.
Top Management and meeting areas are assigned generous central cubicles within the open-space office which are structured with Bene R2 walls. The cubicles were connected to RG all-glass walls so that they appear detached, free-standing cubicles within the room.
DHL office’s main route of communication
An ample central zone constitutes the main route of communication across the new office. It has been accentuated by coloured, particularly sturdy carpet flooring and well separated from the workplaces. This zone affords additional storage space and room for IT equipment with K2 sliding-door cabinets with access from both sides. Printers and fax machines are both visually and acoustically separated from the workstations by R3 partitioning. High Com Tables invite people to hold brief stand-up meetings. When a meeting gets hot, the central zone is also an expressway leading to an in-house cafeteria – to pick up a new freight load of iced coffee.
