E&I Members: How likely are you to recommend E&I Cooperative Services to a peer?
Even small colleges may have to stock thousands of maintenance items in inventory. For large universities or academic institutions with multiple campuses, that number can be substantially higher. While you don’t want to overstock (and overspend), you do have to maintain an inventory of the items you need.
Unfortunately, many schools and universities still rely on manual inventory processes. This can leave you with excess stock in some cases, and still run out of things you need, leading to maintenance and safety issues. It can also drive up your costs if you have to buy products at retail or do emergency orders.
As institutions look for ways to improve operational efficiency, inventory visibility, and enabling automated replenishment have become increasingly important. Grainger KeepStock and industrial vending machines offer a more structured approach to managing facilities inventory.
When maintenance staff cannot locate a needed part, repairs may be delayed. When a frequently used item runs out unexpectedly, teams may be forced to place rush orders or purchase products through alternative channels. Worries about not having the right parts or products on hand when needed lead many institutions to buy much more than they really need, tying up budget dollars that could be used elsewhere. This is especially common in decentralized procurement, where individual departments are managing their own purchasing.
At the same time, MRO products are often a line item that doesn’t get the same level of scrutiny as other expenses, but inefficiency here can add up. So, too, can the time it takes to manage inventory manually. Sometimes, the cost of managing the inventory costs more than the products themselves.
Grainger KeepStock is an inventory management solution designed to help organizations organize, monitor, and replenish frequently used supplies.
Rather than relying on manual inventory counts and reorder processes, KeepStock helps facilities teams maintain visibility into critical inventory. It can include optimizing your storerooms and streamlining MRO operations to eliminate duplicates. For example:
By creating greater structure around inventory management, facilities departments can spend less time counting products and more time focusing on maintenance and operations.
When you hear vending machine, you likely think about snacks and beverages, but Grainger takes a similar approach to MRO and PPE products. Industrial vending solutions provide controlled access to frequently used supplies and consumables. Employees can easily get what they need while inventory usage is automatically tracked and monitored.
You can customize what goes in your Grainger vending machine and require personal ID codes or badge swipes to access items. This allows you to keep tight control over your inventory and also track usage by departments or individual employees. You can also program your vending machine to set minimums, so when an item goes below your required threshold, ordering can happen automatically. This saves time in the procurement process and makes sure you’re not running out of needed supplies or paying for overstock.
Typical items in Grainger vending machines include PPES and safety equipment, electrical and plumbing supplies, first aid, eye and hearing protection, and just about anything you can fit inside the machine or nearby lockers.
Through E&I’s cooperative contract with Grainger, educational institutions can access Grainger KeepStock, industrial vending solutions, MRO inventory, safety supplies, and facilities products through a competitively solicited contract. This allows procurement teams to simplify the purchasing process while helping facilities departments improve inventory control, reduce stockouts, and increase operational efficiency across campus.
E&I Cooperative Services offers more than 265 cooperative agreements, including one with Grainger, which provides exclusive pricing discounts across a wide range of categories, including more than 600,000 products. Academic institutions can access key product core market baskets of commonly used items and develop an institution-specific hot list of up to 1,000 additional items, all available through a punchout catalog in your e-procurement platform.
Cooperative contracts aggregate demand from E&I’s more than 6,500 institutional members, achieving significant volume discounts and terms favorable to the education sector. E&I members can opt into the Grainger contract and see quantified cost reductions and get other exclusive benefits, including financial incentives.
Learn more about the Grainger contract available through E&I and how it can support your institution’s facilities and inventory management goals.