Cross-border Warehouse Storage and Automation for Christie Lites’ Berlin facility.
What happens when a client trusts you with a continent
Christie Lites didn’t need to come back to SEC. The Coventry project had been delivered, the award had been won, and Christie Lites had a warehouse that worked. In the world of stage lighting, Christie Lites is a major North American player, specialising in bespoke lighting solutions for theatre, corporate events, concerts and more. But when the decision was made to establish a European base in Berlin, they chose to extend a UK partnership into a cross-border, cross-timezone, post-Brexit project.
A different kind of complexity
The Berlin facility presented a different challenge to Coventry. The brief here was broad rather than bespoke: a 42,000 sq ft warehouse requiring a complete storage solution across multiple system types, designed and delivered by a UK partner into a German facility for a client based in North America.
The scope SEC delivered included a radio pallet shuttle system across four levels with three shuttle machines, extensive high-level adjustable pallet racking across more than 35 runs, cantilever racking for long-span products, and all associated safety infrastructure. The design was calculated to Eurocode and German structural standards, adding a layer of regulatory complexity that required careful interpretation before a single element could be specified.
What Christie Lites needed was a partner who could manage all of that remotely, on their behalf, without dropping anything.
Managing a project across the Atlantic
Before the proposal was even submitted, the SEC team worked through the full scope of what a German delivery would actually require: supply chain logistics, language and legal considerations, local compliance, German structural standards, and the coordination of multiple stakeholders across different countries. The aim was to arrive at a proposal Christie Lites could trust completely, not simply approve and hope for the best.
Once underway, weekly communications meetings became the fixed rhythm of the project, structured around the transatlantic time difference and designed to keep Christie Lites informed at every stage. A real-time project tracking feed ran alongside, giving the North American team visibility of progress between calls. Timelines, delivery schedules, installation sequences and stakeholder coordination were all managed from the UK, with SEC acting as the single point of accountability throughout.
Midway through delivery, Brexit added a layer of complexity that hadn’t been fully foreseeable at the outset. Increased customs procedures, regulatory changes and logistical delays each required swift responses. Issues were resolved without being escalated, thus reflecting the kind of partner SEC had committed to being.
The outcome
The Berlin facility was delivered successfully across its full scope. Christie Lites visited on completion, and the feedback confirmed what the project had set out to achieve: a fully operational European base, designed and installed to the same standard Christie Lites had come to expect from SEC after the success of the site in Coventry, delivered by a team working thousands of miles from the site.
That is what a long-term partnership looks like in practice.
“Working closely with Christie Lites was an exceptional experience for SEC Storage. We forged a strong partnership, sharing core values that drove us to deliver outstanding results. Their trust in us to handle a vital European project while they focused on North America speaks to the level of collaboration and communication that defined this successful endeavour.” – Tim Judge, General Manager, SEC Storage.
The Berlin project began with Coventry; read the Christie Lites Coventry case study
