VidaXL, Venlo | Super-flat floors for mega-dc

VidaXL is building a second distribution center at Trade Port Noord business park in Venlo, a stone's throw from the current mega-distribution center that has been operational since the end of 2017. Also for this project, Van Berlo has been engaged to realize just under 100,000 square meters of warehouse and shipping floors, part of which has been executed in accordance with the highest flatness requirements.

Things are going well in online retail, as vidaXL proves. Barely a year and a half after the mega-distribution center was commissioned, expansion is already necessary. Construction of the new distribution center began in mid-2019, with completion scheduled for March 2020. "We were approached by Wijnen Bouw Horst to quote the floors," says Frank Louwers of Van Berlo. "In fact, VidaXL had already engaged its own structural engineer for the floor design. Often our own engineering department still manages to achieve optimizations, but that did not apply here; the design was fixed."

DIN 15.185

The new distribution center comprises just under 100,000 square meters of floor space, split into four sections; the "narrow-aisle warehouse," the shipping department, the mezzanine and the sprinkler room. "One of these we performed super-flat, the other three spaces were realized with a 'normal' flatness," Louwers said. "The difference is in the layout of the rooms. The super-flat floor, conforming to DIN 15.185, is specifically grafted onto a 'narrow aisle warehouse.' In this warehouse, electric trucks run on induction. The flatness standard in this case says something about the ruts in the drive aisles with a minimum height difference between the left and right wheels. In total, 16,315 square meters were finished super-flat."

Because specialists are hard to find, Van Berlo started its own business school, the Van Berlo Academy.

522 man-days

The same recipe applies to all floors. Van Berlo applied a hybrid floor in the distribution center, a combination of a traditional reinforcement mesh with steel fibers. Louwers: "The reinforcement mesh is positioned relatively high to prevent cracking as much as possible. In the 91,212-square-meter floor, we incorporated 737,659 kilograms of reinforcement mesh. In addition, 349,930 kilograms of steel fibers were applied and 13,825 cubic meters of concrete were pumped. The pouring and finishing was done in 522 man-days, excluding the wickerwork. All in all, a project of serious stature. We started on Sept. 9 and will have the project completed by the end of 2019."

Van Berlo Academy

Like vidaXL, Van Berlo is also recording steady growth. "We too are facing tightness in the labor market," says Louwers. "Investing in employees is an important pillar within our organization. Because specialists are hard to find, we started our own company school, the Van Berlo Academy. This allows us to train and further educate employees in the world of pouring and finishing. In this way, we perpetuate our growth and can continue to produce high-quality and super-flat floors in the future."