Pens, pencils, Post-its—setting out to save on supplies

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• The department reduced the cost of office supplies by 16 percent in 2009, compared with 2008, which exceeded our goal by 11 percent. In 2010 an additional one percent savings was noted. Savings in 2011 were not as significant because new printers were purchased that required more expensive toner cartridges, but total expenditures remained below the 2008 benchmark. We anticipate an additional reduction in supply expenses due to a departmental initiative to reduce the total number of printers and copiers, which will reduce the number of toner cartridges ordered.
• The standard office supplies list contained 640 items when the project was implemented. This was a 92 percent reduction in items as compared with the 7,700 items in 2008, far exceeding our goal of reducing available office supply items by 50 percent. The monthly cost of nonstandard office supply items dropped by 61 percent from January 2010 to January 2013.
• Ordering designees reported an overall time savings of about 20 hours per week, which translated to a yearly savings of 1,050 staff hours. The significant time savings is attributed to: 1) the creation of a standardized procedure for ordering supplies; 2) the creation of a standard office supply list that is available electronically and updated daily; 3) electronic access to the policy, procedure, workflow, and request form to order nonstandard items; and 4) elimination of conflict between some ordering personnel and the staff who wanted to order nonstandard items.

A successful improvement project requires a plan for sustaining improvements over time, or a preventive maintenance plan. With this in mind, we created the office supply committee to keep the standard office supply list updated and decide whether items will be added to or removed from the list. This committee acts as a resource for the ordering designees, meets monthly to review requests from ordering designees, and exchanges e-mails frequently to review and address ad hoc questions and suggestions.

To make each division and work area accountable for their monthly office supply expenses and orders of nonstandard items, the supply chain management analyst generates two monthly reports. The first report lists the total amount the department spent for office supplies, with information detailing the total amount each division spent, which nonstandard items were ordered, and who placed the order. The report includes a graphic representation of spending trends for the past three to four years and divisional totals. The final report is sent to the department and division administrators and to laboratory operation managers and supervisors for further followup within their division, such as holding people accountable for ordering nonstandard items.

The second monthly report details orders of nonstandard office supply items, including a section indicating if the order was a one-time or an ongoing request and justification for ordering the item. This report is reviewed at the monthly office supply committee meetings to evaluate whether the item should be added to the standard office supply list or confined to the area-specific list. The committee reviews ongoing requests for nonstandard supplies using the criteria we created. If more than one division is ordering the same nonstandard item, the committee will consider adding the item to the standard office supply list.

We learned three lessons from this project. Standardization saves time and money and reduces interpersonal conflicts. Cost is not the only consideration when selecting office supplies; quality also needs to be considered. Reducing the number of available office supplies did not have a negative impact on the laboratory’s daily work.

Denise Bredlow is medical secretary, transfusion medicine; Fazi Amirahmadi is systems engineering manager; and Deb Hagen-Moe is education program coordinator. Other members of the CI team are Annette Bjorheim, Brenda Clark, Joyce Kildahl, Angela Reese-Davis, Rebecca Winslow Rain, Tami Lawler, Jerrad Dietenberger, Megan Rask, and Kari Solak.