By: Briana Smith, Graphic Designer & Matt LaCivita, Operations Manager – WAXIE Northern California, WAXIE Sanitary Supply

Sometimes small details make a big difference, especially when one is preparing to open a brand new state-of-the-art Medical Center like Kaiser Permanente in San Leandro, CA. The Medical Center consists of the medical office building, which is opening in a couple of weeks, and a hospital that is scheduled to open in early June 2014. Recently WAXIE’s Northern California branch based out of Livermore, CA was involved in the process of making sure that 2,957 Rubbermaid Commercial Products recycling & trash receptacles were delivered & installed at Kaiser San Leandro on short notice and it went off without a hitch.

Typically an order of this size would be drop shipped (meaning that an order would be shipped directly to a customer’s location) for them to unpack and place where needed. Current construction projects, limited staging space and a lack of temporary storage space for all of the new recycling & trash receptacles introduced a logistical challenge. Additionally, the installation needed to be accomplished at a moment’s notice and scheduled in conjunction with the ongoing construction projects. All of these factors meant that Kaiser San Leandro needed a company that would store and then install all of the recycling & trash receptacles in order to make their Medical Office Building Grand Opening deadline in early April 2014.

KEYS TO SUCCESS…

• Advanced logistical planning
• Site survey to determine potential obstacles & solutions
• Developing a “game plan”
• Flexibility to adapt to changes in the “game plan”
• Organization!

PREP WORK

WAXIE Northern California received the recycling & trash receptacle order from Rubbermaid Commercial Products in advance. Our warehouse employees counted & separated the various boxes by style and color and then organized them by their future location within the medical office building. The order consisted of nine different recycling & trash receptacles; some included lids, while others came in multiple colors. The receptacles were left in the boxes to protect them from damage, and this also allowed the WAXIE drivers to stack them more efficiently for transit.

WAXIE’s Matt LaCivita & John Stickland arranged with one of Kaiser San Leandro’s Product Managers, to check out the site ahead of time so that they could gauge the space better, see if they had a service elevator, measure the elevators to make sure that flat carts could fit, figure out on-the-spot mini staging areas, etc. This helped them develop a “game plan” for installation day.

TIMELINE

DAY #1 – Friday

WAXIE received the phone call from Kaiser San Leandro saying that they needed us to begin the installation on the following Monday. We finished separating & organizing the boxes with the aid of a temp worker and got all of the supplies ready for transport. Matt asked the Shop to duct tape the wheels of the carts & pallet jacks due to concerns that any moving equipment might harm the new flooring. The duct tape eliminated the potential for damage during the transportation of the receptacles to and from the back dock, to each floor, etc.

DAY #2 - Monday

Brought one truck filled with recycling & trash receptacles out to Kaiser San Leandro, plus an additional vehicle which contained all of the equipment needed, such as flat carts, which would help us to efficiently distribute the trash cans to the correct floors & locations.

At the beginning of each installation day Ivan Lopez, one of WAXIE’s Strategic Market Leaders, would check in with the Kaiser San Leandro Product Manager in charge of the receptacles for the building to verify and sign off on the count for each floor.

Once this happened, WAXIE personnel & a few temp workers split into 3 teams for setting up, staging, and installing - one WAXIE employee worked with one temp at all times. The first team would unload the boxes with the trash receptacles from the truck and bring them into the designated staging area on the ground floor. The second team would then take the recycling containers & trash cans out of the boxes and group them by product type & color. The third team was responsible for breaking down & flattening the cardboard boxes for recycling.

As the truck emptied, the driver returned back to WAXIE Northern California to bring the next load of trash receptacles while the teams distributed the receptacles to the applicable offices, x-ray rooms, etc. so that no time was lost.

At this point, people in the building started to get excited about the new trash cans; after all, brand new clean trash cans can be exciting! Matt mentioned to one of the Product Managers that they may want to start putting can liners in the new receptacles fairly quickly before people started throwing trash in them.

We were prepared to return the cardboard for recycling back at WAXIE, but after checking in with one of the Product Managers, we were able to use their on-site compactor.

DAY #3, #4 & #5 – Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday

We delivered and installed one floor per day and alternated between two delivery trucks. WAXIE delivery times were staggered approximately one hour apart in order to maximize the time to and from WAXIE to Kaiser San Leandro. This allowed the team time to load and unload before repeating the process. Ivan checked in with the Kaiser Product Manager on a daily basis to confirm the logistics of the delivery and installation.

Each floor had unique factors that we had to take into consideration. For instance, the second floor did not have enough room for one main staging area, so we set up two smaller staging areas for distributing. The forth floor consisted of only offices, so there were not as many types of receptacles to sort.

All in all, it went smoothly as the team used a checklist for the placement of all the receptacles on each floor. This way someone could mark off which ones had been placed already, preventing “double work”, missed placement, double placement, etc.

SUCCESS

We ended up getting it all done under the required time allotment and with zero complaints from Kaiser San Leandro. Everyone involved in the install – The WAXIE Team, the onsite Project and Facilities Managers, and Kaiser San Leandro - helped us make this a huge success! Our strategic game plan helped us navigate the logistics of delivery & installation of so many recycling & waste receptacles, and allowed us the flexibility to adapt to various changes along the way.

READ MORE:
Can Liners & Receptacles
City of San Leandro – Kaiser Permanente San Leandro Medical Center
Mobile Waste Collection
Need a Workplace Recycling Program?
Recycling Solutions