University of Liverpool embraces reuse with Warp It

Recently we revealed that we were in the process of asking our community to help us design some amazing visual stimuli for laboratory or science facilities to boost reuse.

There are four main goals of these materials

Collaboration can often mean the difference between failure and success. Our admin forums are designed to allow those running reuse projects to network, collaborate, and share ideas. 

We try to automise reuse as much as possible so that you and your staff and your colleagues can get on with other priorities.

Sometimes it helps if we explain how an surplus asset flows through our system to demonstrate the benefits of an automatic reuse system.

Your big issue = How to manage transport

This guide is here to provide a couple of simple, bite-sized tips for more effectively managing transport and logistics on a large estate. We have various features which mean that transport of items is made as easy as possible.  You cannot get away from the fact that items have to be transported but this article will help you get your transport as effective as possible.

How will implementing Warp It affect transport?

When items become surplus they have to be moved.  They can either be moved to the skip/dumpster...or they can be moved for reuse.

Will the transport department be overwhelmed with new transport jobs? We do not see this happening at new customer system because behaviour change and culture change is slow. It never changes over night. The transport department will see a slight rise in requests which will grow slowly over time.

If you are concerned about the transport system being overwhelmed you might seek to roll out your system incrementally. See here.

If circumstances change, an item listed on the Warp It reuse system may need to be removed to avoid disappointment or confusion.

Linking up with charities to make donations should be easy, right?

Well, before Warp It, it wasn’t. It was a lot of effort, with a lot of back and forth dialogue and loads of legal mishmash. 

"We do not have storage, so we cannot reuse"

This is one of the most common reasons institutions do not explore reuse after the first assessment meeting.

However, we say to customers, ‘Why would you want storage? It’s expensive to own, expensive to run, and time consuming to manage.’

If we could match surplus assets with new homes, while they are still in their original position, would that change things?

It would. We know it would.

As items are added to the ruse system circumstances can change, so notifications and deadlines will be impacted.

To increase the chance a match will made within time frames, and ensure the item finds a new home, you can cancel notifications and alter deadlines.

Here's a guide on how to use these features. 

1. Claim cancel notifications

The notification is simple: 

2. Custom Item Deadlines

When an item is added to Warp It, the member doing the listing sets a deadline for the item. 

This is the final date in time that the old owner can still have the item in their possession; by this date, it must be with the new owner.

The default deadline of three weeks is enough for most, and most members accept this period of time.

However, if you want to change this period, you can do so to allow you to maximise your chances of a match. 

To really maximise your reuse system, you have to get people onto the platform or reuse system, uploading their items, searching for assets and making claims.

The usual distribution curve we see on Warp It is that early adopters and the early majority jump on quite quickly and work it out for themselves because we provide video learning and support. 

Some of the late comers are put off by learning a new system.

A lot of people are put off the idea of taking part because they don’t understand how to use new web services and Warp It is no different.

For these people we recommend doing one-to-one training, which is a quick and worthwhile activity.