For over twenty years, SDI has helped the nation’s largest school system (NYC DOE) with over 1.1 million students and over 1,800 schools across the five boroughs realize substantial savings and maintenance productivity improvements through ongoing supply chain management of maintenance and custodial supply. Part of this program includes continual improvements and supporting New York City Department of Education’s sustainable supply chain strategy.
Leveraging Supplier Relationships
SDI’s supplier relationships enabled some simple recycle and reuse programs that save New York City’s DOE hundreds of thousands of dollars on day-to-day items and materials.
- SDI’s lamp recycling supply partners visit this Department of Education’s headquarters each month – picking up used lamps and ballasts and dropping off new materials. The used materials are then recycled.
- SDI’s mop suppliers visit the schools on a daily basis – picking up used dust mops and floor mats and dropping off new materials. The used materials are cleaned and reused.
- SDI sourced and purchased recycling bins for the schools’ classrooms. We handled the assembly, stickering, warehousing and truck delivery. SDI held inventory for 3-4 weeks, then made 600 deliveries in the next 3-4 weeks.
Sustainable Supply Chain Technology
Recently the Department of Energy Efficiency and Demand Response was charged with identifying, providing, and channeling the school funds to products focused on reducing energy, waste, and reducing the environmental impact for building grounds maintenance, food, and living. Given the Department of Education’s reliance on direct eProcurement of supplies associated with school supplies, SDI worked with the them to develop a sustainable supply chain technology solution and eProcurement catalog that was limited to supplies identified by the school district that aligned with their sustainable supply chain strategy. This sustainable supply chain solution ensures that designated budgets are channeled to items that meet these requirements.
Benefits of going green
This sustainable supply chain solution allows school maintenance technicians to access a one-stop online shopping experience that drives compliance to procurement protocol, yields enriched data for actionable insights around their sustainable supply chain strategy, and provides full visibility into their sustainability buying activities with SDI-leveraged pricing. It allows the NYC Department of Education to provide specific budgets by school to ensure that the sustainable supply chain solution is deployed appropriately across the school system. Additionally, the sustainable supply chain solution provides the ability to request appropriate non-catalog sustainable items which will go through appropriate review prior to approval.
Products were included in the catalog across the following primary categories
- Cleaning Supplies
- Electrical and Lighting
- Filters
As a result of the sustainable supply chain technology, the nation’s largest system of schools was able to get special pre-sourced pricing for the key items in the category. Adoption has been successful with users fully functional with days of delivery. The catalog and sustainable supply chain solution went from discussion to implementation in approximately 30 days. By including the ability for non-catalog requests to be approved, additional items will be sourced based upon repetitive demand, sourced, and added to the catalog. Based upon the success the intent is to expand the catalog and the program in the upcoming fiscal year.
This sustainability version of the ZEUS eProcurement tool combined with strategic sourcing and supplier relationships is just another way SDI helps drive the sustainable supply chain strategy for NYC Department of Education while ensuring continuity of supply through creative problem solving and nearly 50 years of MRO supply chain expertise.
For more information on SDI’s eProcurement platform or to talk to an MRO expert about your sustainable supply chain strategy, contact us today.
