It took several months to plan and design a system where city furniture and appliances can be recycled and repurposed in order to save city funds in acquiring new furniture. The idea was to create a Craigslist that is easily viewable intraorganizational. The city of Garland already has an intranet system called COGnet, and we are able to utilize it and created the facilities management furniture inventory management (FIM). Together with our COGnet, it is also being managed using Maintenance Connection software so we can capture matrices such as labor and cost associated with the inventory.
We realized that our city has limited resources and being good steward of the city, recycling or repurposing our gently used furniture to set up offices is an innovative solution. It is also a two way process where we can pick up unwanted items from different offices not just deliver them. The FIM replaced the huge number of emails sent out by everyone in the organization wanting homes for their unwanted items. The city has about 2,000 employees, and the e-mails could be staggering. FIM gave the employees a centralized solution for their needs.
Since there is already an intranet system, devising an inventory system to compliment it was simply the right way to go. The idea was always to find a way to repurpose idle items in order to save resources. My background as Home Depot manager came in handy in inventory management, from assigning ID to items to the actual location or storage for easy retrieval.
Garland is the 12th largest city in Texas and the 86th in the United States with a population of 245,000. We have 268 buildings spread across four municipalities with over 2 million square feet of workspace. The task of fulfilling furniture requests could be daunting. Each department has two designated facilities management coordinator that serve as liaisons between their departments and the facilities management departments. Requests such as furniture and fixtures are routed through them. This simplifies the process of communication. Some offices have over 100 employees, and one could imagine if every one of them sends requests. The city of Garland has about 2,000 employees. The facilities coordinators use dedicated e-mails and work order system in the Maintenance Connection software and this simplifies the process of requests and fulfillment.
On June 5, 2017, the FIM went live on our intranet-COGnet. Our employees can now shop at the comfort of their offices, and they can also request removal of their used items. Savings in labor hours are also being realized. Before, they have to make appointments to view items at our warehouse. Now they can do it online. I am estimating the savings in the neighborhood of $75,000 for recycling/repurposing otherwise idle items that are still in great condition. The FIM system that we have is truly a success in recycling and in saving city resources.
