New Office Supply Vendor at UCSF
Office-supply vendor Give Something Back (GSB) is now available to UCSF shoppers through BearBuy. The Oakland company, known for its donations to local nonprofits, has been the small-business office-supply option at UC Berkeley for the past three years. Read more about the deal.

SCM Celebrates Holidays 

Supply Chain Management (SCM) staff gathered to celebrate the holiday season on Dec. 17 at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden. The festivities included some tasty treats from Ann’s Catering, recognition of achievements and milestones and a lively competition to create “ugly sweater” cookies (right). The nice weather also meant that attendees could enjoy a walk through the beautiful gardens. Posters from the event hare on display at Mission Center Building and Fourth Street, but you can see a few here as well.

Kudos Korner: Praise for Patrick

SCM buyer Patrick Montoya recently received praise for his work with Berkeley's Eel River Critical Zone Observatory and Sensoil, an Israeli company. 

"Patrick has been a champion of this project from start to finish. I shudder to think where we might be if he did not work so diligently to keep this process on track," – Project Manager Jennifer Hunter

"I would like to thank you personally for your efforts and willingness to help. You demonstrated loyalty to your employer and organization, while at the same time you highlighted your personal concern and showed genuine sympathy in addition to being effective and prompt. – David Waxman, Sensoils

SCM in the News

Helium Deal Expands Systemwide: Supply Chain Management’s Alex Butler recently teamed up with Ross Bausone from UC’s Center of Excellence team to get a systemwide deal for helium that will save thousands of dollars.  The article will appear in UCOP's P200 newsletter that is expected to be released this week.

Internship Program Highlighted in NAEP Journal: SCM’s Andrew Clark and Greg Macway collaborated with Arizona State’s Nichol Luoma to talk about leveraging student and alumni talent. Check out the article.

Team #Supply Chain was one of the top three teams at UCSF in the Cool Campus Challenge that ended last month. UCSF was able to reduce CO2 emissions by an estimate of over 125,000 pounds. The other top two teams were the School of Pharmacy and Micro and CTB. Read more about UC’s Cool Campus Challenge in the press release announcing the results.

Stopping the Waste

The UCSF Recycling & Waste Reduction (R&W) unit is responsible for overseeing the waste stream for all UCSF locations, with the goal of having a zero-waste campus by 2020. The department has made significant progress toward achieving this goal, but continues to seek alternative strategies. Those efforts led them to reach out to the Supply Chain Management’s Strategic Program Management and Communications unit to assist them in advancing their mission. See how SCM is working with R&W.

Frightful Fun at Fourth Street
Supply Chain staff at Fourth Street celebrated Halloween this year with some spirited decorations, costumes and food. Organized by Brenda Duenas, the day included decoration and spooky and best-tasting food contests. Duenas claimed top prize for her cobweb-lined cubicle. Byron Wilson and Carol Tady took top honors for best "treat" while Duenas claimed best "trick" for her scary, but yummy jalapeño rats! Here are some photos of the events.

Surplus Program Focuses on Capitalized Equipment

Late last year, the UCSF Surplus program began focusing on the resale of capitalized equipment. The revised program managed by Supply Chain Management’s Distribution, Storage and Mail (DSM) unit covers any piece of UCSF-owned equipment originally purchased at a cost of $5,000 or more, or any grandfathered capitalized equipment that is still being tracked through the Capital Assets program.

DSM continues to address all non-capitalized surplus items through its Labor Services division. Please contact DSM atdsadmin@ucsf.eduor call (415) 502-6245 to complete a labor services request to remove any unwanted items.

As part of this program change, the BearBuy Surplus Form has been removed from the BearBuy landing page. Capital Asset Surplus requests should now be submitted via the new form available on this page: supplychain.ucsf.edu/surplus.

Welcome 

Welcome to Supply Chain Management (SCM) News for UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley. While we are currently working on ways to better communicate within SCM, this blog is one new effort to keep you informed. Please use the comments section below to give us your thoughts and ideas on what you'd like to see in the future and if you have story ideas, please email carol.tady@ucsf.edu.

SCM Staffers Receive UC Starlight Awards
Each year the University of California 

John Arbolino, Susan Riddle and Andrew Clark

Procurement Services honors staff members’ exemplary work by giving out the Procurement Starlight Award in five categories: Innovation, Collaboration, Initiative Leadership, Early Achievement and Most Valuable Procurement Professional (MVPP). This year, three of the recipients, John Arbolino, Andrew Clark and Susan Riddle, are from Supply Chain Management at UC San Francisco/UC Berkeley.

Strategic Sourcing’s Arbolino claimed the top award, being named MVPP. Clark, Director of Strategic Sourcing, received the award for Innovation, and Senior Business Analyst Riddle was honored for Collaboration. Each honoree will receive $1,000 cash award and a framed certificate.
Read more about the great work these three are doing...

Helium Deal Will Save Universities Thousands

You may remember trying to buy party balloons a couple years back and being told there was a worldwide helium shortage. Annoying, but not exactly life changing.

For UCSF and UC Berkeley, the impact was felt in labs (and bottom lines) across both campuses. Helium, with its unique cooling properties, plays an essential role in a range of the scientific applications and the two Universities consume between 60,000 to 80,000 liters every year. The shortage meant the price climbed from $5 a liter to $14 to $20 a liter.

That was until Alex Butler, who works in Supply Chain Management’s Strategic Sourcing unit, stepped in, worked out a new deal with suppliers, and saved the campuses between 25 percent and 30 percent on the cost of helium. The new price will result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings to the campuses. Butler is also hoping to expand the deal beyond the UCSF and Berkeley to Lawrence Berkeley Lab and other UC campuses.

Jim Keenan, buyer at Space Sciences Laboratory in Berkeley

Now Featuring...

In an effort to get to know each other a little better, this blog (and later the website and/or newsletter) will feature a quick look at SCM staff members.

PROCUREMENT AT UCSF and UC BERKELEY helps save clients time and money so they can focus on teaching, research and public service. Our buyers are subject-matter experts in everything from paper and office supplies to goats for clearing brush and the unique items that allow our researchers to shape the future. Here's a glance at one buyer's experiences.

Unified UCSF Zip Code Required by USPS

Effective immediately, the United States Postal Service (USPS) is requiring that all UCSF locations in San Francisco use the 94143 zip code. This includes all campuses and satellite locations (i.e. Beale Street, China Basin, etc.)
Read the complete article

SCM Honored for Sustainability Work

Supply Chain Management received a 2015 Sustainability Award from the UC Berkeley's Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability (CACS) for integrating environmental sustainability within existing campus operations. Leading the charge have been Sandy Macasieb and Alex Butler.

Read more about their efforts

New Tools for Purchasing  Accessible Products
Information technology accessibility is a priority within the University of California system and procurement is one of the most important and challenging components of this transition. If accessibility is taken into account at the time technology is acquired, each campus may avoid the expense of retroactive customization or the even more costly attempt to provide individualized accommodation.
Read more