Denver Parks & Recreation Improve the Tracking and Distribution of Spring Plants

we have sixteen greenhouses we grow in

36,000 square feet of greenhouse we grow

for this park citywide we also grow for

the zoo in the Denver Botanic Gardens we

have thirty 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

load up plants that way or they would

actually drive through the hallway and

go from one end of the greenhouse not

the other cause so many be like hey can

I place an order for two o'clock 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 parks horticulturists out

in the districts we communicated a lot

to figure out where was the breakdown

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 and where would we

want to go so the current state for the

green house 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 we

placed them at the back of the

greenhouses towards the doors and now

we're loading people from 14 doors

rather than two and they're also their

materials ready when they get here some

people would 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 much

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 it's 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

co-workers 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

you