Innovation

There are two practices Park Place Technologies employs that can be viewed as innovative. The first is its approach to managing e-waste by employing practices to refurbish and recycle old computer parts, and secondly is its approach to managing service calls.

Park Place Technologies is dealing with technology day in and day out. While dealing with technology, engineers and service employees handle different computer parts. These computer parts are used for customers who have some sort of failure with their technology at their organization. After the problem has been diagnosed, a field engineer will physically bring the part to the customer. The computer parts that Park Place Technologies provides the customer, however, are not all new. The organization has decided to make a conscious effort to “go green” by using recycled computer parts. Park Place will buy used or “garbage” computer parts and refurbish them in order to provide greener and less costly options to their customers. By using recycled computer parts, Park Place is eliminating waste and decreasing its carbon footprint.

Although using green products is an effort in and of itself, Park Place Technologies is taking it a step further by changing their response system and service delivery model. While most traditional support calls flow through multiple levels of engineers and IT managers, Park Place fosters a support call flow that directly routes the problem or fault to an L3 Engineer. The L3 Engineer is the person who solves the problem by finding the source of the failure. As a result of the customer engaging directly with the L3 Engineer, field engineers are able to dispatch quickly to fix the customer’s issue. Engaging in this type of model also decreases the time the customer is offline. Although the call flow employed by Park Place Technologies costs more than the typical support call flow, using this method of support provides better customer service, less downtime for a system, and fewer trips back and forth for the field engineer due to miscommunication. Accurately identifying the root cause earlier in the process also results in fewer trips for field engineers, which in turn causes less waste.

Inspiration

The inspiration behind the innovation of using recycled parts came from the desire to "go green" that has been echoed by many organizations around the world. Park Place Technologies is part of the technology industry which is constantly being demanded to go green due to e-waste. It is an industry standard and is quickly becoming an expectation that technology companies proactively seek out way to be sustainable in their business model. In addition to engaging in sustainable practices Park Place also wanted to move towards a more streamlined support call system because it would be less painful for customers and a more efficient process for engineers. Judy ended the interview by saying "Anything that causes strife or fear is meant to get your attention." This quote really sums up the importance of sustainability and going green as proper disposal of e-waste is a growing concern due to the impact on humans and the environment. In the US much of this e-waste is potentially shipped to other countries for disposal. This can lead to far reaching problems not only on a local but global scale. The call for sustainability is all of our responsibility.

Overall impact

The impact of using recycled materials is that it lessens the carbon footprint that the organization creates and helps eliminate waste from our environment. Park Place also is very conscious of data theft and makes sure to properly shred data on all devices before properly disposing of the technology materials. Another prominent impact is the customer satisfaction and trust that people feel in the organization.

Business benefit

The benefits of this innovation to both Park Place Technology and the community appear to center on extending the life cycle of business servers by providing service support and access to recycled parts, offering businesses a safe and cost effective way to properly dispose of e-waste, and lastly provides businesses with the opportunity to re-purpose legacy systems for alternative uses.

Social and environmental benefit

According to the EPA it is estimated that in the United States alone, 2 million to 3 million tons of electronics are thrown away each year. On a global scale is it estimated that nearly 42 million tons of waste was discarded in 2014 and the numbers unfortunately are growing. Electronic waste includes computers, cell phones, washers and dryers.

This presents a unique set of challenges. Studies show only 1/6th of e-waste is properly disposed of. Toxic waste produced by electronic waste impacts the quality of soil and water due and can potentially impact the health of approximately 100 million people worldwide. In addition the UN estimates that 52 billion dollars of the e-waste discarded the material contained within such as copper, gold, and iron could have potentially been recycled.

Interview

Judith Collister - Primary Interviewee and Paul Mercina - Secondary Interviewee, VP of Human Resources