We have 16 greenhouses. We grow in
36,000 square feet of greenhouse. We grow
for this park citywide. We also grow for
the zoo and the Denver Botanic Gardens. We
have 30 horticulturists that help
maintain all the 40-plus parks. There was
a lot of talk about the problems that
were here, but there wasn't a lot of how
are we going to fix these problems and
how are we going to find those solutions.
In the past, it used to be people would
either be at the garage door and they'd
load up plants that way, or they would
actually drive through the hallway and
go from one end of the greenhouse out
the other. You'd call somebody and be like, Hey, can
I place an order for 2:00?
And they'd be like, Let me grab a piece of
paper, or Let me run down to the other
side of the greenhouse. You know?
So it was just not organized. We really talked
to all of the park's horticulturists out
in the districts. We communicated a lot
to figure out where the breakdown was
happening, and then we tried to really
pinpoint those solutions and start from there.
So if we were disorganized on our end,
it would only slow the process down for them.
We're always about improving efficiency.
While we're not selling anything,
the citizens of the City and
County of Denver are paying for us to do
what we're doing, and ultimately, they are
the customer. So when I first took over
the greenhouse and started using the
Black Belt techniques and some of the
processes--looking at the A3--you know, the
biggest thing there was What's the
current state, and where would we
want to go? So the current state for the
greenhouse at that time was a lot of
chaos and also a lot of frustration for people.
What we did was we started using
all of our doors, and the way we are able
to do that is that we actually pull the
orders for them ahead of time and
place them at the back of the
greenhouses toward the doors. Now
we're loading people from 14 doors
rather than two, and their
material is ready when they get here.
Some people can be on the north, some people
can be on the south, and they can get
their plants, get loaded, and get going to
go plant the bed. We have an online kind
of ordering system, so to speak. Like, we
send an email, basically, that has the
beds that we're picking up and what's in
them, and then we send that to them as an
Excel sheet, and then they're able to
pull the orders that way. You can pick
your date and your hour that you're
picking up, and you can pick your bed
number there. So for us, you know, there's much less
room for error. We can just drop it right
into the spreadsheet, and then we can
actually sort and find what we're doing
for each day. So good organization is key
from the very beginning all the way through.
We see that there's a problem. We
talk about it. We communicate together as
a team. Hey, we see this as a problem,
and then we figure out a way to make it right.
If it wasn't what it is now, I can't
imagine how we would operate. Our fellow
coworkers come in and are always very
pleased with the system and are like,
You guys are so well organized, and we
appreciate it. We appreciate the plants,
and it just goes and flows really well.
It's really cool. It makes it all
worthwhile in my mind. That's what it's
for--for other people to enjoy.
[Music].