There are some absolutely huge warehouses around the world but the way forward for these companies seems to be coming up with innovative new ways of maximising efficiency and cutting down on the amount of space needed. This can be tricky is your products are massive or your simply a gigantic operation. Here we take a look at some of the largest warehouses on the planet.
Constellation Europe in the UK
This warehouse is 858,000 sq ft with a volume equal to 14,000 double decker buses. Now that’s impressive! This is Europe’s biggest wine warehouse and houses 57 million bottles. As well as storing wine, it can bottle 800 bottles per minute to reduce transportation costs.
Tesco Distribution in Ireland
Tesco has grown considerably since it’s conception in 1919. There are over 2,975 stores in the UK and this distribution centre was finished in 2007, costing 70 million euros. It holds 600 employees and covers an area of 70,000 square metres. The centre distributes all the groceries and 1.5 million cases are processed every week. Placed end to end, the racking alone would run for 15.6km. For Used Pallet racking, visit www.rackzone.ie/pallet-racking.
Target Import Warehouse, USA
This warehouse is located in Washington and at 185,800 square metres, it is the 4th largest building in the world for it’s footprint size. It distributes stock that has arrived from overseas and is the largest of the Target owned warehouses. Target needs these huge warehouses due to it’s position as the tenth largest retailer on the planet. This helps to prevent the smaller distribution centres from going over capacity.
NASA Vehicle Assembly Building, USA
NASA’s VAB was completed in 1966 and has to be gigantic as it is used for assembling space shuttles and has done for over thirty years. Located at the Kennedy Space Centre, it is the biggest single storey building on Earth with a volume of 3,664,883 cubic metres.
Boeing Everett Factory, USA
This warehouse is also in Washington and was opened in 1967 for the purposes of assembling Boeing aircraft such as the 747. As you can see, size matters here. More than 1,400 Boeing 747’s have been built here and due to need for vast areas of space, this is the largest building in the world by volume, at 13,385,378 cubic metres. Thanks to it’s sheer size, it also contains coffee shops and cafes for staff and also a visitor tour called ‘Future of Flight Aviation Center and Boeing Tour’.
Meyer Werft GMbH in Germany
This is a shipyard that was founded in 1795 in Papenburg, Germany. It was used to build small wooden boats and as the enterprise expanded, so did the size of the ships they built there. This led to the building of the biggest dry docks known to man. These days, the space is used to construct luxury passenger liners and to accommodate these giants, the docks have a volume of 167 million cubic feet. This makes it the 5th largest building in the world.