Smooth move ...

MAUMEE, Ohio - Young Medical Equipment's recent move to a new 34,000-square-foot facility came off like a dream, and CEO Tim Pontius attributes it to his company's decision to hire a moving consultant. Young Medical Equipment hired a moving consultant to help design the most efficient use of space in the company's new 34,000-square-foot facility. “I wanted to make the move as painless on our employees as possible,” said Pontius. “When we moved before we were a small company, and we literally moved ourselves. I remember what a nightmare it was. We were putting stuff in our vehicles and delivery vans and hauling it over, working nights and weekends. By the time it was over, you'd almost wished you had never moved.” Not this time. A moving consultant works much like a wedding planner, making sure everything comes off without a hitch. Pontius and his staff began working with a consultant last summer. When the company and its 110 employees moved over the weekend of Dec. 10, it proceeded like a well rehearsed play. In the days leading up to the move, the consultant helped the company decide what could be packed up early and loaded onto palates. During construction, she made sure that the contractor installed computer hook ups and electrical outlets in the appropriate places. On the Thursday before the move, crates arrived and were rolled into each person's office. Friday afternoon, employees had 90 minutes to load the contents their desks into the crates. Every piece of furniture, plant, picture, etc. were labeled with numbers that corresponded to numbers on the new building's floor plan. “We had about 12 people in the new building during the move, and when someone showed up with a box and it said ‘Smith, room 84,' we pointed them in the right direction,” Pontius said. The company's phones were down for only 32 minutes. On Sunday from 1-3 p.m., employees unpacked their crates and set up their new offices. “You could have walked into the building Monday morning and never known that we had just moved,” Pontius said. The CEO figures the moving consultant paid for herself two times over. If she hadn't come on board, he and his staff would have had to divert attention from their daily duties to coordinate the move. As of early January, the only thing the company hadn't done was re-hang company pictures in the new location. Pontius plans to let the consultant do that, too. “She said, ‘Tim, let me come in and you tell me what pictures you want to go where because you had your pictures hanging too high at the old building.' I said, ‘Hey, they looked OK to me, but if they were too high, I'll let you hang them.' She's been wonderful.”