Project Scientist turned to Apparo for support in making the recommendations of a prior Community Impact Project a reality.
Project Scientist participated in a Community Impact Project with Apparo in 2018, an application selection. The recommendation from that project was the selection of InFlow. Project Scientist returned to Apparo in 2019 for support in implementing InFlow. Apparo matched them with a corporate volunteer team from Deloitte who guided the implementation and generously sponsored the project.
Regina Ossey, COO of Project Scientist shared some background on working with their previous inventory system, “When I first came onboard, 80-90% of the inventory related information lived in people’s brains instead of in a training document. Onboarding was therefore quite a challenge and getting the information you needed took a lot of asking and waiting. There were also data errors and loss with our multiple spreadsheet process. Large orders would arrive for items we already had on hand because someone had made a typo or didn’t receive updates for storage units in other remote locations. Disposable supplies were used up and not updated and reordered. There was low accountability for reusable assets and they frequently went missing.”
Regina is optimistic that with InFlow these problems will be addressed and that the benefits will be significant. She anticipates:
- Decrease of 25% in losses of durable assets with better tracking and accountability
- Decrease in inventory expenses by 18-25% over the next 3 years, due to elimination of double ordering and spreadsheet error and improved ability to forecast
- Savings of 50% of staff time spent on inventory inquiries and research and increased role clarity
- Improved access to reporting and cost information needed to help continue expansion to new locations and cities
Regina shared her thoughts on the significant impact of this project, “We are extremely grateful for the opportunity to work alongside Apparo and Deloitte in creating a customized inventory system for our Summer Academy program. The countless hours spent ensuring we have everything we need to track our inventory will allow for us to have the right materials, at the right time and in the right places for our teachers and Academy leaders to deliver a top notch experience for our students. We can now monitor our loss prevention more efficiently and reduce shrink of reusable supplies. Thank you for this opportunity and supporting us to change the face of STEM by delivering for our girls!”
One year later, the positive impact of this work is being realized.
We checked in with Rebecca Sims, National Program Director of Project Scientist, to learn about the impact to date. She shared:
“While we have not yet been able to fully take advantage of InFlow for our camp programming because of the pandemic, we’ve uploaded all of our data into it and even with the minimal amount we’ve been able to use it, I can say it was worth all of the effort. We were able to easily pull data for our audit and trust its accuracy in a way that we were not able to in the past. In early 2020, we were also able to use InFlow for the science project booths we take to outdoor events in California. The inventory check-in and check-out process was so smooth. We can see how impactful InFlow will be for us when we our camps are back up and running. We are so thankful for the project and our volunteers.”
