It comes as no surprise that facility managers are being asked to “do more with less.” With approximately 90 percent of all facility management costs tied to labor, just 10 percent of manager’s budgets are dedicated to  products.  Why then, do many organizations put so much time and effort into their trying to cut product costs (and many times at the expense of wasted labor hours that could have been better allocated to preventive and interim maintenance tasks.)? Instead, it’s worth considering where labor costs are being allocated to determine how to maximize the return from your current budget. Many factors go into creating a program that will ultimately save in labor costs. This article will explore how the University of Colorado evaluated their program to save time and money within their facility.

The University of Colorado is a major research university with four locations in Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs and Aurora. It employs approximately 20,000 individuals to support the student body of more than 57,000. With more than 1.25 million square feet of building space and 350 full-time custodians, the University’s annual cleaning budget is more than 3 million dollars. With a labor force of  that size, minor process and product changes to a custodial program can add up to thousands of dollars in savings.

Looking for assistance in reevaluating their current program, the University of Colorado assembled a cross-campus committee to evaluate potential partners. Staples Advantage, the business to business division of Staples, Inc., was chosen to work with the University and consolidate and improve its cleaning processes. Since extending a five-year contract to Staples Advantage, the University projects an annual reduction in facility maintenance costs of at least 23 percent. Here’s how they did it:

Centralized ordering
Prior to the University of Colorado’s partnership with Staples Advantage, supply orders were extremely decentralized. Not only were the four separate campuses responsible for ordering their own materials –each department was in charge of ordering their own products. For example, the athletic department on each campus handled the custodial services of their stadiums and each housing department handled ordering for their residence halls. To make matters more complicated, each group purchased supplies from whichever supplier they chose resulting in many different vendors soliciting and delivering supplies, many deliveries  and of course a wide variety of product and programs.

The University saw potential to streamline the purchasing process with centralized procurement, and took the necessary steps with Staples Advantage to do so. Consolidating multiple vendors down to one not only proved to be a smooth process for all of the campuses, but it also eliminated improper ordering, unnecessary and wasteful spending, and allowed the campuses to purchase the most appropriate products with the help of a dedicated account manager – ultimately lowering both operational and product costs for the University and creating a more efficient process.

Consolidating products
Most facilities can professionally and effectively cleaned on a daily basis with as few as two to four products, so replacing the University’s current cleaning chemicals with more efficient, multi-purpose (and more user / environmentally responsible) products reduced the amount of time spent acquiring, receiving and stocking supplies. Staples Advantage quickly created a shopping list of pre-approved facilities products for convenient ordering. To increase the ease of procurement, their ordering list was integrated within the University’s existing e-procurement platform, M@rketplace. As a result, users were able to quickly and easily buy products (as needed) without spending nearly as much time on the task as they had in the past.

Innovation
New technologies are available that can help a workforce perform their jobs quickly and more effectively. After overhauling the procurement process and simplifying the ordering options that facility managers had, the Staples Advantage team began introducing the University to newer tools that would clean more efficiently in less time.
For example, the University of Colorado custodial staff is currently using a touch-free system for cleaning the restrooms and showers in residence halls. Given its large student population, there are many showers to clean on campus. By switching to an automated solution, the task becomes more streamlined and effective for the most efficient and sanitary results, ultimately reducing time spent cleaning and associated costs.

With more than 1.25 million square feet of building space within the four campuses, there are many floor surfaces that need to be mopped regularly - imagine how much time is spent by custodians emptying and refilling mop buckets in a given day. At the Colorado Springs campus, the staff is currently evaluating a clean water mopping system to mitigate those effects. The system filters water so it stays clean throughout an entire shift, decreasing the amount of time staff members spend on achieving optimal results.

Training and education
New technology and a streamlined ordering system can dramatically decrease labor costs by making cleaning processes more efficient, but all of these improvements won’t reach their full potential without properly training your staff on how to use them. It was important for the University of Colorado to offer on-site custodial staff training, as well as one-on-one work with supervisors on proper product usage to ensure that products and technologies were being used in the safest and most efficient way possible.

Additionally, Staples Advantage Facility Solutions field specialists were cognizant of the languages spoken by staff at the University of Colorado. Many members of the staff do not speak English as their first language. To ensure that everyone received equal training, materials were provided in a variety of languages to ensure consistent and safe cleaning practices university-wide.

Ultimately, facility managers spend more money on labor than they do on products, so it’s time to look into how to better save within a facilities budget. Consider how the University of Colorado was able to save a projected 23 percent by reevaluating their current processes and learning how to run a more efficient program. By looking at ways to improve the productivity and efficiency of your workforce, it’s possible to gain more control over your facilities budget spend, reduce wasted labor hours and  to realize significant cost savings, as well as an improved environmental impact, as shown through the University of Colorado case study.