Customer: Print Design and Graphics

Location: Newcastle

Requirement: When a fire broke out one Wednesday evening at the premises of major food packaging producer Print Design and Graphics (PDG), the firm's factory and office building was completely devastated. Immediately after the fire, staff set about rescuing what equipment they could and moving it into the adjacent warehouse and building unit.

Some of the printing operations were moved to nearby sites and some work was put out to local printers. However, it quickly became apparent that there would not be enough room in the firm's warehouse to house all of the office staff and to store the company's documents.

Solution: Newcastle Hire Centre Controller Gavin Lockhart lived nearby and went down to the site the following morning (Thursday), to see if Portakabin could offer any assistance. The next day (Friday), after the company had taken stock of the situation, PDG's Quality Assurance Manager Peter Hampton called Gavin to ask for help. The Portakabin team quickly swung into action, and arranged to deliver two Pacemaker buildings straight away, getting them on site on the Friday and Saturday following the fire.

Accounts and sales personnel were able to move straight into these buildings as soon as they were on site, meaning that disruption to the company's operations was kept to a minimum. Soon after, PDG ordered two more buildings; one for the warehouse manager and another for storage. Meanwhile, rebuilding work was getting under way in the fire-damaged building. During the following weeks the company hired nine more Pacemaker and Portastor buildings for office use and storage, as well as three Portaloo toilet blocks for the firm's 150 staff.

Peter Hampton at PDG says: "We have been delighted with the buildings from Portakabin, and all our staff are more than happy working in their interim accommodation. In fact, they are so impressed by the standard of the washroom facilities - which are plumbed into the mains - that many of them have said they wish we could keep them.

"The rapid response from the Hire Centre meant we had good quality buildings on site very quickly after the fire. When they arrived, the buildings were very clean and tidy, so we could move our people and equipment straight in.

"Because we hired the buildings at different times, we had several different hire contracts running simultaneously. Helpfully, Portakabin was able to move all of these separate agreements onto one contract, which greatly simplified arrangements for us - as well as saving us money."