On November 13^th ,the 99th birthday of Omniva, Urve Palo, Minister of Entrepreneurship and Information Technology, Joona Saluveer, Chairman of the Management Board of Omniva, and Ansi Arumeel, Member of the Management Board of Omniva, laid the first cornerstone for Omniva’s new logistics centre. The new logistics centre will help the company sort parcels and letters much more efficiently.
 
The planned logistics centre, which will cover an area of approximately 13,000 square metres and will be the most modern logistics centre in the Baltic region, will handle all parcels and letters sent to, within, and from Estonia. The construction of the new logistics centre entails the largest investment Omniva has ever made, its cost with the sorting technology amounting to 17.2 million euros.
 
A new world-class sorting line will be the core of the logistics centre, which will be finished in autumn 2018. On the current line, parcels are divided into containers of 33 different areas; the new line will divide parcels into 400 different containers. In addition to a more precise distribution, the new line will work three times as fast as the current one.
 
According to Ansi Arumeel, Member of the Management Board of Omniva, the developments and trends of the logistics area show that the decision to build a new logistics centre was a necessary and correct one. ‘Looking back on the Christmas volumes of previous years and the estimated volumes of this year, it is obvious that building the new logistics centre is fully justified. Our current building at the edge of Lasnamäe district is simply too small for us,’ Arumeel explained, adding that the new logistics centre is a worthy present for the centenary of the company.
 
The logistics centre will mainly be a one-storey building, except for the smaller office wing, which will have two floors. In the new building, 200 employees will work in production and 75 in the office. According to the plans, the company wishes to manage the Christmas volumes of the following year at the new centre.
 
The new logistics centre of Omniva will be located in Rae rural municipality near Tallinn, in a logistically beneficial location with regard to Tallinn, the rest of Estonia, and the airport. Last year, Omniva purchased a plot of 70,000 square metres to build the new logistics centre. The building will cover 13,000 square metres of that area, leaving space for future expansions.
 
The cornerstone event on the 99th birthday of the company also marked the beginning of the jubilee year of Omniva. In exactly one year, on 13 November, the company will turn 100 years old and the jubilee year will conclude with the opening of the new logistics centre. The interim, however, will be filled with activities and events which illustrate the 100-year history of Omniva and celebrate its centenary.
 
The main area of activity of Omniva is the provision of postal, logistics, and information logistics services, as well as handling e-invoices. In addition to the parent company AS Eesti Post, the group comprises subsidiaries and related companies. The principal activity of SIA Omniva and UAB Omniva LT is the provision of parcel machine and courier services on the Latvian and Lithuanian markets. AS Maksekeskus operates in the provision of payment solutions to e-commerce companies in the Baltic region. Post11 provides online traders with holistic international logistics solutions for delivering goods across the world.
 
The average number of employees of the group across the Baltic States in 2016 was 2,244 people; the turnover of 2016 was 95.8 million euros.
 


Photo: Urve Palo, Minister of Entrepreneurship and Information Technology and Joona Saluveer, Chairman of the Management Board of Omniva at the cornerstone ceremony.