True Sustainable Procurement- don’t buy stuff you don’t need?

This chair was pulled from a skip with all wheels intact, lumbar support and gas lift working.

You probably know this already: If you work in a large organisation, there are surplus operator’s chairs, inkjet cartridges and desks in the organisation not being used- stashed away for a rainy day. 

 

 

 

Yet in other departments, staff are still buying operators chairs, inkjet cartridges and desks- even when there is a surplus elsewhere!

 

WARPit is a sustainable procurement tool which is saving organisations money, carbon and waste. 

 

The tool reduces procurement spend by making it really easy for anyone purchasing "anything" in an organisation to check whether anyone else in the organisation has the item spare first. 

 

WARPit reduces waste disposal spend because it allows anyone in an organisation to give, loan, share, rent or sell a resource internally or externally. 

Instead of throwing "stuff" away, staff should be able to find new owners (with in the organisation or externally) easily and legally.

The tool  also allows organisations to collaborate with each other and claim/borrow what each other have spare. This is like nothing else you have seen before- it is the first of it's kind.  

 

Basically it allows the whole organisational estate to swap, share, trade, sell, and rent  surplus resources (Like some Ebay/Amazon/Freecycle cross breed on steroids) and save money- but also "friend" (just like Facebook) other organisations to share surplus resources.

 

Surplus and redundant furniture, fixtures/fitttings, consumbles, supplies and equipment is massive problem in the public sector.

 

In June I was asked to dispose of 200 excellent condition operators chairs by a large public sector organisation. When questioned, I was told new homes could not be found internally. 

200 excellent condition operators chairs out the front door week 1

The following week, in a different department in the same organisation, I observed 30 new operators chairs being delivered- costing £130 each.

30 brand spanking new operators chairs in the back door 2 working days later!

 

People are inherently good, not evil- staff do not want to waste resources like this but there is something wrong with the system. 

It is a challenge to find new owners for useable resources legally, quickly and easily. It is also easier and quicker for purchasing staff to purchase new “stuff” rather than find the surplus resources in the organisation.

Staff should not be buying stuff that the organisation already has spare, and people do not want throw away good quality resources. 

Due to social networking technology, it is now possible to match supply and demand through nearly instantaneous mass synchronisation of wants and needs in a way which both sides gain. 

 

I am Daniel O’Connor , an ex Local Authority Officer and I have just launched a organisational redistribution network called WARPit  - it is a Social Network for organisational collaboration and resource sharing.

 

In simple terms WARPit reduces the need to purchase by making it very easy for staff who are about to purchase stuff, to find others in the same or partner organisations who already have spare "stuff".

 

WARPit also reduces waste spend by making it easy for people who want to dispose of "stuff" to find homes either internally or externally

 

 

There are loads of benefits: Please also check out how it works on Youtube and here is a summary of the problems that it solves.

Bound for the skip until thrid sector partners were informed

 

My clients are achieving payback times of about 10-14 days for your average organisation.

 

Have a look at Sunderland CC's WARPit portal. They are saving about £1000 a week on avoided procurement costs. Hit the green search button top right to see what they are swapping today.

 

If you like what you see drop me an email here

 

 

 

Crazy wasteful times!

See the full gallery on Posterous

So we go the the environmental and financial expense of manufacturing and delivering desks. The desk gets used for 5 years. A building then gets a refurb.

The desk is not redistributed to anyone else but left to the refurb contractor to remove. The contractor bills the organisation for disassembly, removal and disposal on top if the refurb budget!

No one taking responsibility fir the resource and so is wasted

The photos here show disassembled perfectly good condition desks and notice boards being skipped and headed for recycling and or landfill....

We teach children to share- schools should too.

The cost of purchasing rises every year and budgets get smaller every year. A new breed of services are cropping up which could help schools do more with less.

In the UK 80% of the items that people own are used less than once a month. You may use a power drill  between six and thirteen minutes in it’s entire lifetime and yet half of households have their own power drill. There  are power drills all across the nation just gathering dust and taking up space. There is the same situation in  the school environment.

The unused potential of all of these drills is called the idling capacity. Ownership of a product you use just once or twice a year makes no rational sense.

There are many opportunities for schools to share physical resources which have idling capacity. Usually a school will require the resources when one school doesn't and vice versa.

For example, in the school environment each school has equipment it only uses a few times a year or a term- lab and sports equipment, IT equipment the list is endless.

How can we use this idling capacity of equipment, resources and items to redistribute it elsewhere?

Social networks make it easy to match supply and demand through nearly instantaneous mass synchronisation of wants and needs in a way which both sides gain.

 

“I have set up a social network which makes it easy for schools to give, share and loan equipment to each other.” Says Daniel O’Connor- developer of www.warp-it.co.uk

Schools can legally and safely loan equipment to each other when it is not being used. In the short term this reduces the cost of purchasing new for the claiming school, but also frees up space for the contributing school.

“Take for example the skeleton model in biology which are usually purchased and kept by high schools. The skeleton model can now be passed temporarily to schools which do not have one or even to primary schools for use in lessons, before being passed back to the original school.”

“A teacher in Sunderland has put an Egyptology resource pack on the system. This means instead of each school buying an Egyptology resource pack, one can be shared amongst many. Saving money for all”

This is just two examples- I am sure teachers can think of many more ways to share resources, but in the long run we may have to adjust inters school time tables to share physical resources!”

In the long run schools can get to understand their needs and can go into a joint purchasing agreement and share resources or equipment. This reduces costs and gets maximum use out of the equipment.

There are obvious liability and maintenance issues but these are managed using the system.

Schools can also link up with other educational institutions- for example Universities often only use exam desks twice a year- and the rest of the year they have to store them. WARP-IT now provides the mechanism for universities to share exam desks with schools- saving everyone money

Daniel says “The big financial saving is we don’t have to buy new stuff and we don’t have to pay for stuff to be thrown away. Because we don’t have to buy new stuff we reduce waste and carbon emissions."