Amica’s high-bay warehouse in Wronki, Poland, is 47 m high, making it the highest building of this type in Poland and the tallest in Europe in the white goods sector. This impressive building was made in cooperation with Ruukki Polska, which delivered sandwich panels for its walls.  

This construction project lasted slightly over one year. A high-bay warehouse for white goods manufactured by Amica in Wronki was built in an area of 6,097 m², reinforced by foundation piles with a total length of 20 km. The floor space of fully-automated warehouse is 6,500 m² and ensures places for 26,000 pallets for 230 000 large home appliances.

Amica S.A. is the biggest home appliance manufacturer in Poland. The brand is widely known also abroad since their products are sold to more than 50 countries worldwide. Major export markets are Germany, Great Britain and the Nordic countries.

The building is impossible to miss and this made it important for the investor to make sure that its appearance and construction methods complied with the highest standards. The high quality of Ruukki’s products and our experience fully met customer’s expectations.  

“The main decision criterion for us was high quality, guaranteed durability and project reliability at, of course, affordable prices. Where such structures are involved, we cannot experiment with materials but we need to choose proven and reliable products that guarantee quality and long-term durability required by us. Possible problems with an envelope, e.g. corrosivity, airtightness leaks, damaged steel adhesion to PIR/wool core would be very difficult to fix due to the building’s height and continuous operations. We chose Ruukki because of its well-known brand, proven high quality ensuring long-term performance of construction products, experience, top service level, short-distance deliveries and optimal price,” says Tomasz Machaj, Investment and Maintenance Director at Amica S.A.

Local availability was an additional advantage, but also a challenge for Ruukki. The panel factory in Oborniki is only 36 km away from Amica’s plant in Wronki. Many people from Wronki work in Ruukki’s plant in Oborniki and vice versa – Amica’s employees live in Oborniki and commute to Wronki. All of them want to be proud of their companies and mutual cooperation. And this can be really seen and felt! Marcin Remisz, Production Manager, Ruukki Polska, who used to live in Wronki, comments on this project:

“I’m really glad that we were a part of this modern investment and contributed to its success. The warehouse is recognizable locally due to its size, appearance and functionality. We have known from the beginning that customers expect high quality and delivery accuracy from us. Despite the sizeable order volume, everything went very smoothly and all the panels were produced exactly as needed. Once again our team showed that we can meet such expectations and I would like to thank everyone involved.”

Ruukki delivered at short notice 15,000 m² of sandwich panels in two types, with PIR and mineral wool cores, which were installed on the same façade. All the panels were manufactured at Ruukki’s plant in Oborniki.  

“Our big advantage is the fact that we can deliver a combination of matching PIR and mineral-wool-core panels. The panel width and profiling is identical,” explains Eryk Podpora, Regional Sales Manager, Ruukki Polska, who was responsible for cooperation with the customer.

The building’s height created many structural challenges, such as increased wind loads or potential major deformations, which had to be solved at the design stage. With such a big volume of panels, it was also important to ensure color uniformity, especially since metallic colors were involved, as these are even more difficult.  

Surface flatness also posed some challenges – large façades make even the smallest quality defects very visible, therefore flatness tolerances were extremely tight.

“We had already delivered sandwich panels to Amica earlier, for their plant’s envelope. The investor was very well aware what could be expected from us. We also proved again that high-bay warehouses are within our core expertize. Our products were used in projects such as a high-bay warehouse for BASF or the buildings of a sugar factory in Środa Wlkp.,” says Eryk Podpora.

An impressive gray-colored warehouse with a red stripe and the red Amica logo is visible from afar. It definitely changed the local landscape. But at the same time it became the company’s showcase –excellent looks, a high safety level and no environmental impact in the form of noise and pollution constitute its strengths, to which Ruukki greatly contributed.