Silicon Valley Tech Firm Moves to New HQ


SUMMARY

Situation:

Relocation to a new corporate headquarters. After redeployment of usable items, a substantial fraction of existing furnishings remained as surplus.

Material Composition:

Steelcase systems furniture, private offices, conference and meeting rooms, etc.

Setting:

Suburban campus, one, two, and three story buildings.

OVERVIEW

Moving to a new corporate campus, this expanding technology firm determined that its most efficient and cost-effective option was to dispose of most of their old furnishings and purchase new, rather than disassemble, move, and reinstall the existing furniture. The firm requested assistance from Steelcase dealer OneWorkplace in disposing of the furniture.

OneWorkplace brought IRN’s Surplus Program to the attention of the firm’s management team. With a corporate commitment to Sustainability, and after evaluating the comparative cost of reuse vs disposal, management determined that, based on cost, environmental, and social considerations, reuse was by far the best way to handle the surplus from the old facility.

The surplus furniture has been removed in several phases as the campus was vacated. Phase 1 (summarized here) encompassed removal of approximately 600 office settings, for a total of some 6,200 pieces.

SETTING

Multiple low-rise buildings on an open 28-acre campus. Buildings were vacated by company staff, and items designated for internal reuse by the company were removed, prior to IRN’s mobilizing on the site.

IMPLEMENTATION

The project was scheduled over two weeks. Corovan Moving & Storage provided labor for the project. Corovan is a regular mover for this firm, and is also a regular IRN partner in California. Corovan’s crews were divided into those knocking down the furniture and putting it on dollies (small items were first placed in boxes), a crew feeding each outbound trailer, and two or three packers inside the trailer loading to optimize the “cube” – that is, the number of pieces loaded into the trailer. As always, IRN’s goal was to pack as much as possible into each trailer, (1) to minimize shipping costs, and (2) to minimize damage in transit by leaving little or no room for items to shift, collide, or fall.

The table summarizes the project schedule, loads, and final destinations.

Date Piece Count Destination
Monday 3/21 593 Feed the Children, California
Tuesday 3/22 691 Feed the Children, California
Wednesday 3/23 606 Feed the Children, California
Thursday 3/24 756 Feed the Children, California
Monday 3/28 685 Food for the Poor, El Salvador
Monday 3/28 633 Food for the Poor, Jamaica
Tuesday 3/29 549 Fundacion Nuevos Horizontes, El Salvador
Tuesday 3/29 489 Food for the Poor, Jamaica
Wednesday 3/30 516 Fundacion Nuevos Horizontes, El Salvador
Wednesday 3/30 717 Fundacion Nuevos Horizontes, El Salvador
Totals: 6,235

COMPOSITION

Item Count
Bookcase 1,064
Desk, L-Shape 613
Desk, Straight 670
Overhead Cabinet 596
Storage Tray or Shelf 1,073
Bulletin or Tackboard 1,113
Tables 3
Office Supplies and Small Office Items (boxed) 1,106
Totals: 6,235

DESTINATIONS

As is frequent on large projects, the surplus was provided to more than one recipient organization. In this case, four loads were were claimed by Feed the Children, for distribution from their southern California depot to community development projects in the U.S. and overseas. Three loads were shipped to the Fundacion Nuevos Horizontes in El Salvador, and three were packed and shipped to Food for the Poor’s central Caribbean depot in Jamaica, which supplies FFTP relief and development initiatives throughout the Caribbean Basin.