Upgraded and future-proofed, Allegion New Zealand’s new Head Office is a highly functioning local manufacturing and operations facility, with expansive views of Auckland’s Pollen Island Marine Reserve and Auckland’s CBD that is a show piece for the construction industry.
Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.”
Thus, the new build faced challenges along the way. Levelling of the land and off-site disposal required substantial time and resources. Ground stabilisation and strong foundations were needed. The national lockdown caused by COVID-19 stopped all construction for six weeks and extended the timeline by the same period. Consequently, a full revision of the schedule of the relocation to the new facility was required.
Allegion New Zealand’s old factory was built in the 1970s and didn’t meet the needs of our business or our updated and innovative manufacturing processes and plans for growth.
We considered a variety of options to best fit the needs of our employees, our customers, and our business moving forward. Ultimately, Allegion chose to develop a bespoke new facility on the site.
With the aim of providing a connected and inspiring work environment conducive to creativity and innovation, Williams Architects designed Allegion New Zealand’s new building to have a natural flow and connection of the offices, warehouse, and factory reflective of the company culture “One Team, One Allegion.” Brendon Simpson, Allegion New Zealand Managing Director, says the building design also factored in features to help boost employee engagement.
In line with Allegion’s ‘be safe, be healthy’ value, the new facility provides the staff with a modern, safe, and healthy work environment.
Internal and external training sessions are now conducted in a large training room and better collaboration between local and regional teams is facilitated by multiple meeting rooms fully equipped for video conferencing. Other modern technologies implemented in the new building include installation of digital telephony and warehouse barcoding, while customer services and purchasing processes were re-engineered to improve business efficiencies and significantly reduce paper.
The facility constructed by Haydn & Rollett also supports operational excellence that is essential to achieving competitive advantage, with NZ-based manufacturing that includes a fully automated world-class electroplating plant.
Brendon Simpson
Managing Director
Sustainability is not just the right thing to do, but the smart and profitable way to go.
Allegion’s ecological impact and corporate social responsibility strongly influenced the building design and scope of site improvement. To encourage the return of wildlife and have an area for the wider community to enjoy, Allegion planted 11,500 native plants.
Double glazed windows with high performance glass, large roof overhangs, and louvre bays for solar shading provide a comfortable interior with excellent natural lighting. Exterior lighting is controlled by photocells and timers, so they are only on when it is dark and the site is active.
Most of the office area is provided with indirect lighting, which provides lower levels of glare that improves comfort. Controlled by motion sensors and intelligent light switches, these lights are only on when people are present within the office spaces.
An ultra-high efficiency VRF (variable refrigerant flow) air-conditioning system provides mechanical ventilation that maintains a high degree of indoor air quality.
The warehouse lighting makes best use of the skylights by employing photocells that switch the lights to 0%, 50%, or 100% depending on how much natural light is available. The factory and warehouse areas were also designed to have thermal comfort.
A very comfortable and healthy work environment has been achieved with material selections for both the hard and soft fitout and the base building, while the use of timber finishes provides a warm feel to the interior of the office.
Onsite showers, personal storage lockers, and bike racks encourage more employees to cycle to work.
In addition, low water use plumbing fittings were installed and to further lessen the company’s carbon footprint, electric vehicle (EV) chargers were installed.
A spacious showroom displays Allegion’s product innovation and a broad range of door hardware solutions are exhibited throughout the site. Locally manufactured products like Legge 990 mortice locks are featured on internal doors; FSH FEL990M mortice locks linked to access control in selected rooms; most lever designs and all finishes of the Legge 6000 Series furniture are used throughout.
The boardroom (aptly named “Taupo” after New Zealand’s greatest lake) showcases Brio Open Bar Rail 150 on an oversized sliding door, which presents unique and impressive industrial aesthetics. Durability, style, and ergonomics of the Schlage Trento pull handle finished in a satin black chrome makes a bold statement on the door.
For easy opening and reliable closing, most of the door closers in the building use the Briton 2300/2700 Series cam action closer with black electroplated stainless steel or powder coat finishes.
The warehouse entry demonstrates how the Von Duprin 99 Series push pad exit device with electric latch retraction provides safety without sacrificing the benefits of access control. Above the door, the ECO ETS73 power operator ensures that the door seamlessly and quietly opens with no effort from the user.
A tour of Allegion’s building is seeing and experiencing the company’s products live and in action.
The new facility has exceeded the expectations of Allegion’s building project stakeholders and employees.
The layout supports better interaction between teams, resulting in greater efficiency and engagement, and that the outdoor connection via deck and outdoor area from the cafeteria are enjoyed by everyone in the building too.
Operations Manager Peter Hill shares that, “The updated layout and more efficient systems of both the factory and the warehouse mean that collaboration among teams has never been better.”
Although the new warehouse footprint is smaller than the previous one, it has 50% more pallet storage capacity space. This is achieved by the more efficient six-pallet bay high racking, twice the capacity of the old warehouse.
Allegion New Zealand today has over 100 employees. Although space in the new facility has been maximised, the design has future-proofed the growth for all parts of the business. The training room can be easily removed in the future to provide additional office space. The rear wall of the warehouse was designed to allow it to be moved outwards and create more potential for the factory in the future.
With all this in place, a very promising future belongs to Allegion New Zealand.
Brendon Simpson
Managing Director
