Meeting a Facilities Management Challenge: Part 2

This is my second article in a three part series that highlights a client case history about how, facing a pending merger with another industry leader, the real estate and facilities management (FM) department of a major chemical company solved a complex challenge. In my previous post I examined how the FM department engaged Canon Business Process Services (Canon) to meet the company’s demand for reduced costs and headcount while sustaining quality service and giving its FM staff new opportunities. In this article I will spotlight key elements of Canon’s solution.

Once engaged, Canon moved ahead by assuming management of the company’s FM staff (45 employees to date) and implementing changes that continue to advance the operation. One example is warehouse management, which spans the receipt, storage, inventory control and distribution of virtually everything that moves throughout the company’s main campus, including hazardous materials. Canon helped improve the efficiency of many of these activities by installing a sophisticated asset tracking and management system. The system offers many benefits, particularly better accountability in the form of a chain of custody for tracking the flow of mail, parcels, property, files, print jobs, services, people and more—as they enter and move around the campus.

For the company’s print center operation, Canon created a state-of-the art electronic print operation, upgraded equipment and introduced more efficient processes and solutions. The latter includes an electronic print job submission and tracking system. This enables the chemical company’s employees to use web-based portals to submit and track the status of print job requests. One system covers internal print jobs; the other is used for commercial print services (e.g. creating brochures, marketing and training materials and annual reports). These changes in the company’s overall print management strategy also provide more advanced chargeback capabilities and cover the company’s full range of print needs, from high-volume black and white and color printing to producing oversized documents with full finishing capabilities.

Canon went even further to achieve business benefits within the commercial print function by providing a professional print buyer. This executive uses a third-party online procurement system to purchase approximately $4 million of commercial print services annually. With the new procedure, an employee electronically submits a commercial print job request. The print buyer posts the request on the online procurement system and selects the top two or three bids. These are discussed with the employee managing the project and final decisions are made based on price and turnaround time.

In my next and final post in this series, I’ll focus on some business benefits that these solutions have generated. In the meantime, feel free to visit the Facilities and Logistics Management Services page of our website where you’ll find insights on industry trends and best practices. You can also download white papers, case histories and more.