What a Whirlwind!

After the Grand Opening of our new San Jose facility, we’re ready to breathe deeply and look forward. What an exciting couple of months these have been!!!

About 18 months ago, (I can’t say for sure, but it was sometime during the 1st quarter of 2011), Creation—Santa Clara just ran out of space.

As People & Culture Leader here in Santa Clara, I knew we were reaching our limits…

We’d run out of conference rooms bookable for essential meetings.

There wasn’t enough parking for our team.

Much to the dismay of our Continuous Improvement Coach and Supply Chain Leader, materials were stored in a temporary warehouse and even in what used to be walkways. This was definitely not aligned with Lean Materials Flow and our Tailored Product Supply solutions!

But our customers kept growing, and we were committed to growing with them. We had to find a solution.

Expanding Our Horizons

Careful analysis helped us come up with an answer…we decided to expand, and add our third building in California. (Our existing Creation—Santa Clara location has two, originally one for circuit board assembly, the other for full integration and direct fulfillment programs).

Faiyaz Syed, our Supply Chain Leader, was ‘volunteered’ to take on the responsibility of finding us a new home.

We expected our new project leader, Faiyaz, to scout a few buildings, arrange a few ‘home improvements’, and move some equipment and people over when the new facility was ready. Not much to ask, right?

It was a great deal more than that. It turns out that we have high standards!

Faiyaz and David Longshore, our General Manager in Santa Clara, ended up looking at over 100 buildings, both on paper and in person, to get it just right.

We looked in different cities such as Santa Clara (of course), San Jose (North and South), Fremont and Milpitas.

Summer went by, leaves changed color, and finally approaching the holidays, thanks to the keen eye of Kidder Matthews, we finally found what we were looking for in a building in Milpitas, just 5 miles from Santa Clara. Yippee!

We took possession of the new building in March 2012.

Our New (Second) Home in Northern California

We gave Faiyaz plenty of time to get us up and running. We just wanted to be in by June. No rush at all!

He’s done an amazing job, along with our entire team. I’ve loved watching everyone come together to make it happen.

The last couple of months have been a whirlwind of activity as we’ve laid flooring, installed HVAC, configured and qualified new SMT lines, achieved new regulatory certifications, streamlined inventory planning and product delivery, and moved our Customer-Focused Teams into their new homes.

To top it off, we also decided to embark on a new implementation of Oracle! But that’s another story.

Celebrating Our Grand Opening

A few weeks ago, the whole team finally got to celebrate with our partners and friends as we officially opened the doors to Creation Technologies–San Jose.

I had a lot of fun planning our Grand Opening and we had a really great day. It’s always wonderful to see our amazing customers, partners and friends!

It was also an honor to welcome Jose Esteves, Mayor of Milpitas, who awarded Creation the Key to the City, as well as First Sergeant Beckles and men from Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, Small Arms Readiness Group who made us proud when they raised our new flag for the first time.

Like the rest of the team here in California and the rest of the Creation family, I’m really excited about what comes next.

To read more about our Grand Opening and our President & CEO, Arthur Tymos’ take on the day, please read his blog post, Grand Opening of Creation Technologies San Jose.

Would you like to come and visit us in our new San Jose location? Please send me an email, we’d love to see you!