The records of the National Archives of Finland are moved to Mikkeli
The National Archives of Finland is an agency operating under the Ministry of Education and Culture, whose activities cover the entire country. The task of the National Archives is to permanently preserve documents belonging to the national cultural heritage, and to ensure their availability and promote their use.
“The National Archives’ central archive in Mikkeli was completed at the beginning of 2017. The project to transfer records to the new central archive was put out to tender in accordance with the Hansel Framework Agreement,” explains Juhani Tikkanen, Head of Unit, National Archives of Finland.
Unique service package
The National Archives’ move from Helsinki to the central archives in Mikkeli is Martela’s biggest-ever service project. A total of 53 shelf kilometres of records were moved between various locations.The records were packed, moved and shelved at several addresses at the same time over a period of four months, with 20-25 people working on the project every day. A total of 11,000 castor pallets were needed and 134,000 kilometres were driven to implement the move. In addition to the transfer of records, the project included the dismantling of wooden shelves and archive drawers in the premises that were being emptied and other additional work ordered by the customer.
Good project management and flexibility guaranteed a great result
“Some of the time, records were being packed, moved and shelved at the same time at four different locations, which was a challenge for implementation and resourcing. However, the work was completed nearly 2 weeks before the initial deadline. This was the largest individual logistics project in the over 200-year history of the National Archives, and the cooperation with Martela was excellent and flexible,” says Tikkanen.
