If your department needs envelopes but we are out, you may purchase them through General Stores. Use stock number 44100 for a box of 250 and 44101 for lesser quantities. Please use only the approved three-column envelopes for sending intracampus mail.

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"I knew, through my laundry expertise, that we were paying for wastewater we were not discharging. I wanted to save money," says Laundry manager Dave Gray. "In the laundry business, water charges are based on consumption, not what goes down the sewer."

The Laundry receives potable water from the Oakdale water system and uses approximately one million gallons of water per month. Water usage by this facility was reduced by more than 50 percent due to the water conservation system incorporated into the building's mechanical system design. The volume of water used is documented through a four-inch compound domestic water meter. After going through the industrial process described below, it becomes wastewater that is discharged down the sanitary sewer.

When the Laundry was constructed, no means of metering its sanitary sewer discharge was provided. Due to the location and elevation of the facility, the sanitary sewer pipe discharges directly into Coralville's waste water collection system without passing through the existing Oakdale Campus sanitary sewer meter.

In the summer of 2000 The University of Iowa, in cooperation with the City of Coralville, began an investigation to determine actual sewer flow from the Laundry. The University, with assistance from an outside engineering firm, determined that rerouting the discharge to the existing Oakdale sanitary sewer meter was not cost effective compared to installing a meter on the current system.

After discussing the merits of building and maintaining a permanent versus a portable meter, the decision was made to try to find a portable flow meter that would work in this application due to the higher capital and operating cost of a permanent structure. Also, a portable meter would be accurate enough for determining actual flows and could be removed after enough data was collected.

A portable DataGator flow meter was installed and calibrated in June 2001. It was set up to collect flow data every minute. The flow meter was tested against the known constant flow of 15 gallons per minute through the domestic water meter. There was enough discrepancy that the computer program was reconfigured by the factory; after the flow meter was reinstalled, calibrated, and again tested, the flow meter and the domestic water meter showed the same flow rate.

The DataGator took a flow measurement every minute and stored the data for two-and-one-half days. The data was typically downloaded on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, at which time the domestic water meter was read and the consumption through the water meter was compared against the flow data collected by the DataGator for the same time period. The information was entered into a spreadsheet to compare the water meter flow totals to DataGator sewer meter flows and calculate the differences.

This data was averaged and showed only 37.87 percent of the total water used in the building is discharged into the sanitary sewer. The remaining 62.13 percent of the water used is lost through evaporation due to the industrial processes used in the Laundry. These processes include the drying of the materials, the recycling of rinse water through the reuse system, and direct injection of steam into the materials. The collected data supports the premise that not all of the water consumed by the building is discharged into the sanitary sewer and that a large percentage of this water is lost due to industrial processes.

The data collected from this project was used by the group to develop a sanitary sewer billing proposal with the City of Coralville that will result in savings to the University of approximately $20,000 per year in reduced sanitary sewer charges.

The process
Water used by the Laundry passes through water softeners and is then sent through the waste heat recovery unit. The flow then splits between the tempered water storage tank and the direct-contact hot water heater. At this point, part of the flow feeds water to the tempered water storage tank and the rest feeds water to the direct-contact hot water heater. This water heater feeds makeup water to the hot water storage tank.

Water from the tempered water storage tank and hot water storage is fed directly into ten diffferent washing machines. The 50-pound and the 125-pound washing machines have one drain system, whereas the two 275-pound and the six 450-pound washing machines have dual drain systems. The dual systems allow for rinse water from the washing machines to be recycled through the reuse water system as feed water for the washing machines' first fill cycle.

Water from the tempered water tank is also used to feed the boilers. Steam from the boilers is used as direct-injected steam in the cleaning process. All condensate returns to the boilers as feed water.

All wastewater from the industrial processes is collected into a waste pit, where it is pumped through a shaker screen before entering the neutralization tank. It is then discharged into the eight-inch sanitary sewer pipe leaving the building. All other domestic wastewater, such as water from the break room area, is discharged directly into the sanitary sewer pipe.
Dave McClain

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The software allows you "to evaluate the products currently being purchased to see if there is a more cost effective, comparable item stocked by Corporate Express," says Brian Studier, Corporate Express account executive for the University. "This can include items purchased from any of our competitors."

Consider one-inch binders with a plastic-sheet overlay, for example. "We have five brands of binders that are essentially the same thing. But if you compare them, there might be a 20 percent difference in price. If needed, a sample of the comparable, lower cost alternative can be sent to try to make sure it will work for the application it's intended for," says Studier. "If a department doesn't care what brand it gets, we want to save them money."

Because of the volume of orders placed by UI departments—at least 100 per day—it's not feasible to do this on an order-by-order basis. It is most useful for someone who repeatedly orders items for his or her department or who makes department-wide decisions about purchases.

The software, called Express Advantage, was developed by Corporate Express. It is a nationwide program already in use elsewhere. "We have had pretty good success with it. It's a good way to save money," says Studier. Contact Brian Studier, 384-3919, if you wish to use this service.

MIGS
-lowest prices for 450 items on UI contract
-online list of more than 45,000 office supplies
-immediate online pricing information
-next-day delivery
-quick ordering
-accurate, efficient billing

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The PBB Document Center and the College's copy room had four analog printers that she replaced with three 600-dpi digital printers that are connected to users' work stations. The Document Center uses two of the printers, one for large jobs and the other as a backup. The third, a 55-page-per-minute machine for smaller files, is owned by Document Services but used solely by Business faculty and staff. It sits behind a gate in the Document Center and is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to individuals who have a key to the area.

A new scanner, with "powerful editing tools," resulted in a new service at the Center. "We scan and convert files to Acrobat PDF, then return them to the professor," says department information specialist Tim Blake.

Other new services there are cleaning up scanned copy, combining scanned with electronic copy, and tape binding, says Carolyn Stoddard, Document Center operator. She adds that she can easily reprint an order on request, because the Center archives the documents it prints.

By all accounts, the "24-7 room" is a success. "Professors print directly from their desktop and then go pick up the completed work. For confidential material, they often send files to a queue, go to the printer, and then hit the print button," says Kline. The room also has shredder.

"A lot of them like it very much," says Blake. "It's better quality. They especially like having access to their own digital printer." In order to print, each user needed a printer driver installed on his or her computer. "I went around to each person's office and set them up," says Blake. "An advantage of Document Services doing this is that we provide installation, training, and tech support. The biggest advantage, though, is improved quality—and the convenience of sending files from their office."

Other benefits are that the College need not concern itself with toner, paper, printer supplies, machine purchases, and service calls. Ultimately, it spends less money per page than if it operated its own printers. And users do not need a requisition for each order. "They send work with an ID number. We bill them monthly," says Kline. Contact Marge Kline, 384-3717, if you have questions or if you would like to discuss establishing a similar program for your college or department.

For each job he will "hang the plate, add water, and make a couple of pulls." (Translation: he attaches to the press the aluminum printing plate that bears the image, wraps it around a cylinder, and clamps it down. He then puts water on the plate, so the soy-based ink adheres only to the image area. Finally, he prints test sheets and fine tunes the position of the plate.)

"We make sure everything's right before we start running it," he says. "That's the biggest part of our job -- if it's not right and we run it, it's done. We have to start all over again." He loads stacks of 23x35-inch sheets of paper onto the press and watches closely to make sure it operates properly. At several points during a run he will pull a printed sheet from the stack for a quality check, looking for debris (called hickeys and scum in the trade) and checking to see that the registration marks align on the front and back of each sheet and from one sheet to the next.

The work can be wearing. "I just finished a job that was 45,000 sheets, enameled," he says. "It took me three days to run it. I was pretty whipped by the time I was done."

There is also preventive maintenance. "It's part of the preparation, making sure these machines are running at their peak," he says.

Keith and his wife, Donna, met at their previous jobs. She now works in the bindery at a local printing business. They live near West Branch, where, says Keith, "I work in my garden. Antagonize my wife -- that's a 24-hour a day job!" He raises a variety of vegetables. "We put up what we know how to do. Green beans, tomatoes. We freeze peas. Potatoes we leave in the ground."

While an Iowa native, Keith says "I'm a Missourian at heart. Most of my relations are there. I go down there when I can." He plans to visit more in the future. "I'll travel when I get older. Wherever the road takes me—I'll just get in and go."

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