PURCHASE AND STOCKING OF LABORATORY GLASSWARE 0. M. LOYTTY Corning Glass Works, Corning, New York
WEAT does the meaning of the title of this paper imply to you? To me it implies a service organization. A service organization again implies, whether it be a college or university or an industrial organization, that it assumes the responsibility of seeing that the flow of supplies in and out, with storage facilities for the interim period, is maintained. All of the activity centered around procurement, storage, and issue of supplies is based upon adequate record keeping, and the ideal is, of course, to have sufficient stock a t all times and not to have dead stock on hand. First of all, we would like to give a bit of background as to our distribution system. When World War I cut off our glass import from Germany, it was necessary for a manufacturer of glass in the United States to produce a good heat-resistant glass. Corning research made "pyrex" brand glasses available to the chemists of our country, hut a t the time there was no means of marketing this item until the laboratory supply houses approached Corning with a view toward handling our ware. Dealerships were authorized and the flow of beakers, flasks, and test tubes, etc., began to the ultimate user. We felt at that time, and still feel, that the method of distribution through a recognized laboratory supply house is the logical way of distributing our products. This is due to a variety of reasons, but the primary one is the fact that all of the requirements of the laboratory may he obtained through the laboratory supply house. This means not only glassware, but chemicals, apparatus, instruments, etc. Therefore, with this tie-up, the laboratory supply houses became the buffers between manufacturing and the ultimate user. We, as a concern manufacturing thousands of items, cannot keep all of them in stock, due to manufacturing difficulties. The laboratory supply houses perform this service; they balance out their stocks to the point where, ordinarily speaking, they have enough stock to carry from one run of an item to the next one, possibly anywhere from two to four mondhs later. This service is invaluable to the chemist in carrying out his work. Our policy with dealers suggests that they carry a four-month stock-they are paid to do this service of storage, handling, advertising, and cataloguing. Further, your laboratory supply dealer renders technical service. The important function, however, is to carry a good stock, to give you the service you require. Let us take the first portion of the title "Purchasing" and what responsibility a buyer has under a procure-
ment schedule. Ordinarily speaking, a buyer will take into account in purchasing laboratory supplies quality of ware, delivery, and satisfactory price. If a bidding agency meets all the requirements, then that agency is awarded an order covering a bid list. After an order is awarded to an agency it then becomes a responsibility of the procurement agency to see that the flow of materials comes iuto his organization, as set forth in the bidding agency's bid. Through experience, the buyer knows the supply houses that carry balanced stocks, as well as those which do not. The buyer who awards contracts to supply houses in the latter category must anticipate his needs further in advance to meet requirement dates. While bid lists are far the most popular method of obtaining supplies, they also involve a tremendous amount of detail work for yourself and all concerned. If, for example, bids are sent to six or more laboratory supply houses these bids must all be tabulated for the above delivery schedule, quality, and satisfactory price. Oftentimes, however-and it occurs no matter how efficient the service organization isurgent requests come in from the staff of the college or university for immediate procurement of an item. Generally speaking, this type of request is not sent out on bid, but is entirely contingent upon delivery, providing quality of the ware is uniform. Our representatives, on their calls to colleges and universities, point out the importance of standardization of glassware as much as possible. Standardization becomes particularly important where it means a difference in a discount. The quality of glassware balanced to meet the needs of any chemist must, of necessity, tie in with any procurement program. While we have been talking in general terms, let us take a look at the problem on hand concerned with laboratory glassware buying. We must deal, as far as experience is concerned, entirely with the items furnished by the Corning Glass Works. Glassware requirement lists are usually made up by the storeroom keeper with the help of the teaching staff or, in the case of a smaller school, by the head of the chemistry department. These lists usually state what their requirements will be for any forthcoming period. Here again, in the case of a larger university, it may run for only a month, and in case of a smaller school, it may run for the entire year. Before domestic manufacturers of glassware came iuto the picture after World War I it was necessary for all schools to place their orders in the spring for fall delivery due to import time from Europe.
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As noted above, you can see that this is a problem no longer. To aid the procurement officer Corning has done everything possible to suggest an advantageous discount buying schedule. In our catalogue "net price each" prices are taken as "list" for computation of consumer discounts as follows: Less than one case.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 ta 19 assorted eases.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 to 49 assorted cases.. . . . . . . . . . . . 50 to 99 assorted cases.. . . . . . . . . . . . 100 or more =sorted cases.. . . . . . . . .
List List less 10% List less 10 and 5% List less 10 and 10% List less 10 and 15%
Consequently, our traveling representatives, as they contact various universities and colleges, urge the buyers wherever possible to buy in a t least full-case lots and, where multiples of cases are purchased, to attempt to reach the additional discount in the 20-, 50-, or 100case bracket. By simple arithmetic, it is not difficult to determine what the savings would be over a period of time when more than 100 cases of ware are purchased per year. To further ease the procurement problem we have made considerable progress in cutting down the size of our individual packages. Several years ago the size of many standard packages was large, cumbersome to handle, and often it was difficult for the smaller school to utilize all the pieces in that particular case in less than two or three years. With the advent of a smaller package, practically no school has to hold an item more than a year to completely utilize it. To illustrate this point, in the early 30's we packed the 250-ml. filtering flask 96 per c a s e t o d a y they are packed 36 per case; 50-ml. Claissen flasl~sat that time were packed 48 to the case-today 24; volumetric flasks formerly packed 72 per case have now been reduced to 12 pieces per case; condensers were 24 per case--now 6 per case. This list could be endless, but these few items illustrate the point that the reduction of case size has made it possible for a large number of users to take advantage of multiple case discounts. With such a close tie-up between procurement, stocking of a storeroom, storeroom keeping an inventory, one must necessarily overlap into the other. As I pointed out earlier, accurate record-keeping is an essential that no school can do without. Most of the large universities have set up perpetual inventory cards covering each item that their storeroom handles. Inventory cards can be simple or complex, but they must contain information relative to procurement and rate of issue from stock. Experience as towhateachindividuallaboratorymay requirethroughout aperiod of time can be gleaned from these cards. As the cards indicate an item is moving fast or slow, or that an item was over- or underhought, procurement can be adjusted to a reasonable level to insure adequate stocking, but not overstocking. We have been concerned up to this time with procurement of your glassware needs and have mentioned practically nothing about the actual storing of materials, though I have mentioned that we have done everything possible to reduce package sizes for convenience of handling as well as issue. As a rule,
materials flow through a receiving room into the storage area. Most frequently, bulk storage is adjacent to bin-type storage, though I have seen many successful examples where the bulk storage area is quite a bit removed from the bin storage areas. However, having bulk storage next to the shelves, the matter of replenishing shelves becomes that much less cumbersome. Oftentimes, the storeroom Beeper may utilize the top of his shelves to handle his bulk storage. This is an excellent idea as it cuts down on wasted space, in addition to making it convenient for the replenishment of the loose stock. Both ideas are good, due to the fact that they cut down wasteful hauling from one area to another. The actual type of shelf can be left up to the individual, but we do recommend strongly that the manufacturers' catalogue number be used wherever possible in setting up individual bins. By specifying manufacturers' catalogue numbers, the work is simplified for many concerns. One catalogue is used for marking cards and bins, for setting up requisitions and, further, is used by the procurement officer. Manufacturers' catalogues are universally used by the laboratory supply houses and, consequently, do not present a problem as far as transposition of numbers is concerned from one supply house to another. Again covering what we have done to make package sizes smaller for ease in handling and using, we have carried this idea further with respect to making shelf packages of convenient size to fit into the outside shipping carton. This idea has been carried into beakers, flasks, thistle tubes, test tubes, and a number of other items. For example, a standard package of 120 beakers of 250-ml capacity contains 10 shelf packages, each containing a dozen beakers. We plan to continue to do more work in the packaging line for the customer's convenience. This method of pack facilitates handling of glassware when setting up shelf stock, and further, keeps the glassware clean until it is used by the chemist, with the added advantage of cutting down breakage. As you will all remember, all beakers and flasks were formerly wrapped in tissue paper and then packed in excelsior in an outside carton. As a result a great deal of excelsior was left lying around on the stockroom floor when an original package was opened, and created quite a problem as far as cleanliness was involved. Further, the beakers or flasks sat on a shelf for a period of time and collected dust, giving the glassware a dirty appearance whenitwasissuedto thechemist. I am sure you will all agree that the new method of pack is a worth-while stride in the right direction. However, all this program has not been completed, but the new pack on common, fast-moving items should be completed this year. The problem of inventory of " ~ ~ r e xbrand " glassware can oftentimes become quite tedious and involved. Again from experience, most schools prepare mimeograph lists of items that are a permanent part of the student's locker while he is taking general, quantitative, qualitative, organic, physical chemistry, etc. Either a t the end of a semester or a t the end of the
school term, an inventory of the student's locker is taken indicating what is short, over, and the amounts tallied as to what is needed to refurnish the student's desk. This obviously is correlated with a physical inventory of items not only in loose bin shelves, but also in the bulk storage area, and again tallying this against the rate of issue and amount of issue det,ermines what the procurement program will be for whatever period is set up on the buying schedule. I will not attempt to set up any recommendations on the method of student's charge+ut. This has been done in several different ways, and as long as proper charges are made, it is believed that that is all that is necessary. I would like to say a word about the efficiency of a central storeroom system. Some large universities and medium size universities have set up a central stores group to handle sciences, and in other cases, not only handle sciences, but also storage and issue of supplies of all categories. The one big advantage we see in the central storeroom is that it combines all items for procurement of a common nature. In other words, under this plan more than under any other plan, buying is done with best discount rates. For example, bacteriology may buy separately from chemistry in some schools, and the same is true with botany, biology, etc., who individually do not obtain the 100-case price, but
collectively do; chemistry usually dominates this group and is the heaviest user of laboratory glassware. Under a central storeroom setup, all departments, including chemistry, go to this storeroom for their supplies. Other schools have designated their chemistry storeroom as the central storeroom only, however, with respect to scientific materials. This is also an efficient method of operation, due to the fact, again, that orders can he combined to obtain a maximum discount. Maximum discount rates today are increasingly important in the face of fixed budgets. In closing, I would like to recommend the following: (1) Standardize as much as possible on glassware requirements. A balanced glass toward thermal shock, chemical resistance, and mechanical breakage is needed to fulfill all the requirements of all chemists. (2) Purchase your glassware requirements in multiple case quantities to obtain the maximum discount. (3) Specify manufacturers' catalogue numbers wherever possible to avoid any misunderstanding as to what is needed. (4) Order all your needed supplies through your laboratory supply dealer who can fll all of your needs, rather than skipping from one supplier to another to obtain not only standard items hut items of special manufacture.
