Managing FF&E deliveries worth $6 million for The University of Nebraska Health Center and UNMC College of Nursing
This blog is part of summer 2018 coursework requirement for Digital Insights and Analytics taught by Prof. Brandon Nutting at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
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| Image Courtesy - Nebraska Today |
When I was assigned to manage $6 million worth of procurement
orders and deliveries for Furniture, Fixtures and Equipment (FF&E) for The University of Nebraska Health Center and UNMC college of Nursing at UNL, I knew
it would require a LOT of attention to details. At the beginning I was a little
nervous with the number of stakeholders involved, but, I was never too worried
or stressed simply because we had an excellent team in place that always worked
together.
I am sharing my experience and lessons learnt with the hope
that you may benefit from it. The discussion is divided into 5 blogs or parts focusing
on one step at a time. Details at the end.
Step 1: Get a clear
understanding of what you are expected to do.
The scope of work cannot be always clearly defined on some
tasks. Sometimes there is no clear line on what you are expected and not expected
to do. When you are assigned a task in an ongoing project there are several new
faces that you don’t know. It is easy to get confused on who does what and whom
to question for a certain equipment. It is easy to feel guilty on questioning
one person too much and taking up their time. The key is to understand what you
are expected to do. I will lay great emphasis on the word 'expected' because
understanding expectations is not always easy. Expectations will change over time thus understanding what you are expected to do is a continuous process and asking the right questions is important for this process.
In my first meeting with the project manager, Joe, one key question that I believe helped me was – “What am I
expected to do?”
This question brought the discussion directly to
the point. The answer provided was – “I need you to create PO’s for
all the FF&E that we will be purchasing as part of the project and schedule
deliveries.”
Me – “OK! Do we have final quotes?”
Joe – “Not all yet. They are working on it. I will copy you
on all emails”
Me - “OK”. End of discussion
There was a reason I kept the conversation short. Joe had too many things on his mind that day and I did not
want to bother him with more questions. I have known Joe for the past two years
and I was sure that he will check on with me when his time permits (which he
did) to make sure I have everything I need.
After going through emails, project documents and quotes, I
identified some problems. The quotes did not have consistent information. They
were addressed to different people, the ship to and bill to addresses varied,
many did not include freight charges, some had taxes included when the
University is tax exempt, and some were close to expiry. It was time to move on to Step 2 – Organize, Consult,
Discuss and then Instruct.
So I gathered all information available and took help
from our project controls coordinator, Kris, in outlining a consistent set of
information 'WE' would like to have on a quote. Honestly, we struggled to some extent
in getting it updated because not everyone can always respond promptly due to
their other commitments.
When you have good people on team, everything works out in
the end. There were few people at UNMC and Nebraska Med who had worked really hard to
put all the quotes together. They worked with us to get the revisions we
requested. After talking to them, I was amazed with the amount of discussions
they had and the amount of information they were tracking (including comments,
suggestions, complaints, concerns, requirements, model numbers, brands, alternates, lead times, and finding lowest prices!). After handing over all that information to
me they have worked with me to-date answering all queries related to the work
they did.
The other key question that I asked to the UNMC and Nebraska Medicine group - maybe out of fear
that at some point I am going to be confused and lost– What process did you
follow to keep track of all the information you have?
I wanted to understand the team I was working with. I
wanted to blend in rather than start on my own terms. I wanted to make sure
they will understand easily the software’s, the documentation and the process I
plan to use while creating and tracking the PO’s. I wanted them to trust me as a team
member.
They came back to me with an excel spreadsheet that was in a
‘fairly used condition’ with words striked out, rows and columns color
coded, notes with names/dates/comments and lots of tabs - all of which got a
little confusing for me at the beginning. My next step was to organize and filter
data per project needs moving forward which will be discussed in the next blog.
So far, the key experiences
and lessons learnt were as follows:
1) If you
have a chance to work with a great team – Jump in. Before joining, I
thought that the task assigned to me was easy and wondered what more could I learn?
I was wrong. This task introduced me to several small things that mattered and
made a big difference to the project success.
2) Everyone
will not pay attention to everything you request thus when time is running out
you need to keep moving forward with what is relevant. Pick your battles because your time is important.
3) While creating PO’s for equipment delivery for a
University, make sure you verify the zip
code you enter. The zip code for the physical street address of the
building was 68508-0046 and NU campus mail was 68588-0046. I had not thought
about verifying the zip code until we ran into a mismatch on one PO.
4) Always remember - It is difficult to completely
figure out everything that needs to be ordered a year before project
completion. Everyone wants the best for the facility thus there may be changes
during the period when a quote is requested. There may be changes after the PO
is issued and there may be changes even after the items are on site. Being patient is crucial.
5) Try your
best to foresee what is coming so you are better prepared for the next
steps –
a. When you are creating a PO, read about the items being ordered. Make sure somebody on site
verifies if the requested item would fit in its assigned place. Makes sure it
has the required power and/or other utilities available. Verify the path of
travel requirements from entry to the room it goes. Do not assume the faculty requesting the equipment has verified everything.
b. Call the
sales rep. This is something I did not do for all orders because of
shortage of time. But after giving a quick call to some of the sales rep’s and having
a short chat about the order before placing a PO is something I will highly
recommend!
Ask them –
What is the equipment? How does it function? How does it get packed? What
are the accessories ordered? Do you think anything else may be needed? Is there
assembly needed? Is there any testing needed? Are there software requirements?
Sales rep’s love to talk and they will answer all your questions (most of
the time 😊). Chat with them. Develop a good relationship
because YOU will need them to work with you if you have issues with the delivery
schedule.
Ask them how the order would be
processed within their company – This is very very important if you have
multiple items being ordered from one vendor. Ask them if all items will be
shipped in one shipment or if the items would arrive separately. Try to find
out if the sales rep will be your only contact throughout OR once the PO is
issued somebody else gets the responsibility of processing the order? Ask them
who is their immediate supervisor? (Copying their supervisor on an email after
not getting any timely responses from the sales rep helps get the questions answered
sooner for sure!)
6) And last but not the least – Make sure your PO has all the relevant
instructions on it. You must instruct the vendors on when you would like
the equipment to arrive and who should they be contacting to schedule
deliveries. We had a great format in place for instructions to go on PO’s that
served us well in managing deliveries.
I hope you found this blog helpful. This blog is the first
of the five blog posts in the series listed below.
Part 1: Get a clear understanding of what you are expected
to do.
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