Saturday, 29 October 2011

Massive ingot aluminium

Snapped a pic of this huge aluminium ingot as we were driving back from a great Warpit meeting in the NW. If a can of aluminium is 14g that means this lump weighs 21 tonnes. Not sure what an ingot of aluminium is worth but baled cans are £1000 baled- so this ingot prob worth well over £21k - maybe almost double.

Sunday, 23 October 2011

Untitled

Resource efficiency and challenges of ticking all the boxes.

WARPit has been live for 4 full months now- and it has been a very busy summer/autumn. I have travelled up and down the country several times, had a visitor from Austailia and attended several conferences. We have about 30 organisations on board taking trials and we also have a further 10 or so who have gone ahead and purchased subscriptions or are about to.  

In the current climate this is positive however I do find that because WARPit ticks so many different boxes it is hard to get the main messages across because it means different things to different people. 

I have summarised here the main benefits but I have outlined below the main benefits to different sectors below. 

Waste and Facilities Management

WARPit is a zero waste tool as it finds new owners for surplus resources, within the same organisation or partner organisations-  reducing waste disposal costs and risk.

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Cabinets in a storage yard

Procurement

WARPit is a sustainable procurement tool because it stops people buying new. The system facilitates Ebay style searches- so  staff can find surplus resources inside their organisation and beyond- within partner organisations. Reducing the need to purchase new, saving embedded carbon and procurement spend.

Space efficiency

As WARPit encourages staff to upload and redistribute surplus resources- it encourages decluttering, which increases space efficiency.

Furthermore the loaning facility allows organisations to free up space by loaning out resources they might only use once in a while which they normallyhave to store. A great example of this is a University who usually stores exam desls between usage which is only twice a year. WARPit allows them to loan the desks to schools when not in use- saving on warehousing. 

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Rooms all over the UK packed to the brim with spare stuff

Large firms and Local Authorities

Due to the economic climate many organsations are down sizing- When someone leaves and organisation they leave behind all of their resources. WARPit helps to redistribute these resources easily and legally.

Surplus and redundant furniture and equipment is massive problem in the public sector. It is a challenge to find new owners for useable resources quickly and easily. There is nothing more indicative on a wasteful organisation than good quality furniture in skips. WARPit fixes this issue.

Schools

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.

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.

If a Local Authority signs up to WARPit all of their schools get  the service for free.

Business

WARPit provides a great platform for business of any size to access cheap or free office equipment safely and legally. For a small subscription rate business can search for surplus resources in thge area and beyond.

Construction industry

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When a client leaves a building for the refurbishment contractor- often everything gets left behind. Who takes responsibility?

When refurbishment projects start the client usually leaves furniture, equipment and fixtures and fittings inside the building- which is inconvenient for the contractor. WARPit makes it easy to redistribute the resources.

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City wide sharing economy

Resource collaboration between organisations is the really exciting part. The WARPit network enables resources to be transferred legally and safely from areas where they are not needed to somewhere where they are. That might be in the same organisation- or it could be to an organisation carrying out similar activities locally such as universities, councils, hospitals,  SMEs charities or schools. A great opportunity for towns/ city’s / regions to develop local sharing networks

Third sector

I have detailed third sector benefits here

The reason I developed the resource sharing network?

The effectiveness of the system increases as more join, as there are more resources circulating and the system serves its community better. The co- operative principle is always the same- many hands make light work, and the greater the collective benefit to the community.

In these times of improved efficiencies organisations must look across the road at their neighbours and look to share resources both physical mental and social.

Wednesday, 19 October 2011

Anti storage

P141

If resources are in storage they are not being used= inefficient.

Storage is expensive

Also storage doubles the chance of damage to furniture and injury to the person handling it.

Furthermore storage requires management- which takes time!

Annnd another thing- the contents of stores often get forgotten about- and become obsolete, and then need to be disposed of... So it's expensive in those terms too!

The Warpit network is designed so that transfer of resources is direct from point of donation to the claimant - missing out storage all together. You might say i am anti storage!