Imagine, someone asks you to get a new toner for the copier. You think to yourself, “Do they realize the magnitude of the job they’ve just asked me to do? Have they seen our supply closet? It could take all day.” You’re a team player though, so you cheerfully say “You bet! Just give me a few minutes.”
We deliver supplies to offices all over Utah and Nevada, so we’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly over the years. We’re here to help you get that supply closet under control with these 4 tried and true tips for organizational success.
#1 Group similar items & clearly label shelves
Few things are as frustrating as having to hunt around for that thing you are looking for only to find that it’s not where you left it last. If you don’t have a place where similar items are meant to go, people will tend to put them wherever is most convenient for them. If your supplies are organized this way, it only takes a short amount of time before disorganization and frustration set in.
The best closets we see while delivering supplies for copiers and printers are the ones that clearly mark where things go, and where all the similar items are grouped together. One day after visiting a customer that normally had a junky supply closet, we were impressed by how organized it suddenly was. This sparked a great conversation, during which we learned that the customer took everything out of the closet and laid it all out on the floor, grouping items together in a manner that made organized sense. After that was done, they labeled the shelves and placed each item on the corresponding shelf. The difference was drastic!
#2 Check on it regularly
That same customer smartly assigned an employee to keep track of the supplies and their closet. They told us that they checked on the closet every week at least once, sometimes more. They found that by doing so, they made fewer trips to the office supply store, and were able to get things done faster around the office by ensuring employees could easily find the supplies they needed. Even better, they weren’t purchasing supplies more than they needed to because it was easier to tell which supplies they already had.
#3 De-clutter and standardize
Another customer who has an amazingly organized supply closet told us that they standardize on the tools their people use so they only have to carry one supply item in their closet for each task their staff performs. For example, each tape dispenser and stapler at their office is the same. You can see how much easier it would be for the person ordering supplies to simply remember one SKU for each supply item. It’s incredibly efficient for this company to operate this way, and no doubt frees up more time to focus on other mission-critical tasks.
#4 Consider a copier that helps you simplify toner supplies
We’ve covered 3 great tips for keeping your supply closet spick-and-span, but we have just one more thought to leave you with.
In the same vein as de-cluttering and standardizing office supplies, Sharp offers a great line of copiers that all use the same same toner. This may not seem like a big deal, but it’s actually very unique. In fact, Sharp has the only line of copiers in the industry that all take the same toner – from their 20 page-per-minute unit all the way up to their 70 page-per-minute copier. This helps save you time, money, and storage space by removing the necessarily complicated chore of stocking several different models of toner for the various machines in your office.
As if that weren’t enough, the same line of Sharp Copiers also allow you to get the most out of each toner with the Auto-eject feature. This fool-proof feature prevents the toner from being removed until it’s completely empty, ensuring that there’s no wasted toner.
