UW News

September 14, 2011

Need new flooring? See samples at new Flooring Showroom

Staffers Jeff Kopec, left, and Rick Gilstrap admire the floor samples in the new showroom.

Staffers Jeff Kopec, left, and Rick Gilstrap admire the floor samples in the new showroom.Breona Gutschmidt

Time was when Barbara Clouse, a maintenance mechanic lead in the Universitys Shop 54, was spending a lot of time taking heavy books of carpet samples to potential campus clients. Someone would put in a work order for flooring and ask to see samples, and off shed go.

“I was running books back and forth to Health Sciences, here and back, and I thought, ‘Theres got to be a better way,” she said.

So she and her colleagues created one. They turned a storeroom in the Plant Services Building into a flooring showroom so clients could come to them. “We created this space so people could come in and see samples on the floor and look at the books,” Clouse said.

The showroom includes flooring samples in dozens of sample books, as well as a variety of artfully placed remnant flooring samples on the floor. There are also shelves and a large desk for looking at books or searching for samples online.

“You can come and see anything you want. Its easier to keep track of the books and keep them up-to-date,” said Clouse. She added that people “like the different colors” of the carpet and tiles on the floor, noting that several spin-offs from the tile design there have been requested by clients.

“By installing samples on the floor,” observed Donna Thompson, assistant director of Campus Alterations, “customers can see what the product looks like in place and see how the materials wear over time — and coming to the Plant Services Building, they can visit our shops and see and learn about other services we can provide.”

The floor of the new showroom gives potential clients a chance to see what various carpet samples look like.

The floor of the new showroom gives potential clients a chance to see what various carpet samples look like.Breona Gutschmidt

Shop 54, which is part of Campus Alterations, includes finish carpentry, painting and flooring. The showroom project came out of the department-wide Lean initiative that Facilities Services is involved in. Lean is a process improvement philosophy that focuses on customer service and encourages employees to look at the way they do things and try to improve them.

A number of employees contributed to the showroom. Ray Uhl, Shop 54 supervisor, came up with the idea of using different remnant samples on the floor, and staff floor layers created the design. The painters spruced up the walls of the space and the sign shop created signage for an open house held in August.

Creating the showroom isnt all Shop 54 did. The shops flooring inventory was organized as part of the process, said Uhl. He said the group went over all their materials item by item and eliminated things that were obsolete or unusable, reducing their inventory by two-thirds as a result.

“There were items left over from projects that we couldnt use, and we found some things in an attic that were 20 plus years old, ” he said. “We got rid of a number of things through surplus.”

The shop has labeled everything, and is now grouping all like kinds of inventory together. “Anyone not familiar with flooring can come in and easily identify whats on the shelf,” Uhl said.

“Lean is the impetus for all of it,” Thompson said. “It really gets people thinking.”

“Ive been here a long time,” added Wayne Ebel, a floor layer, “This is the best its ever looked. I like it. I like things being a little organized.”

To set up an appointment at the Flooring Showroom, contact Uhl at 206-685-8806 or rcuhl@uw.edu.