NOS is a minority owned company and many of our solutions are Made in America and readily available on GSA Contract.
The Year in Review – A Storage Knowledgebase

The Year in Review – A Storage Knowledgebase

The new year is almost here, full of exciting possibilities and the fruition of well-executed plans. It’s also a great opportunity to consider the knowledge gained in the previous 365 days. With that in mind, here’s a selection of our most popular posts of 2016.

 

The Ultimate Document Management Guide

Tracking and storing reams of paper documents can be an exhausting paper chase, but with planning, consistency, and a great storage system, you can relax and get on with your business.

Fashion Designers’ Workplace Storage: An Update

How do design-conscious fashionistas incorporate great storage design into their workplaces? Here’s the low-down.

Your Cell Phone Is Zapping Your Self-Worth

Good posture leads to good self-esteem. With phones or with adaptive office furniture, take posture into account for better self-esteem, assertiveness, and productivity.

The Law of Unintended Consequences: Gun Storage

For safety, police are required to confiscate guns in cases of domestic violence complaints. But overcrowded, insecure gun storage in police property rooms then becomes a safety problem itself.

A Lab Design Space-Planning Checklist

Planning for future lab needs is always the most challenging part of any lab design space plan. Modular casework gives you flexibility for the future as well as usability for today’s needs.

 

We’re looking forward to assisting you in the New Year!

 

Photo © Marek/Fotolia.com

Moving to High Density Storage? 5 Tips for Success

Moving to High Density Storage? 5 Tips for Success

Congratulations! Your company has just acquired a sleek, compact high density storage system to replace that bulky, unattractive space hog of a “filing farm.” Now what? How do you organize that new system to reap the maximum benefits for you, your co-workers, and the business?

  1. Use your imagination – Close your eyes and imagine where you would instinctively look for certain files. Do some files need to be in a special “ready access” section? Can others go into a deep archive?
  2. Purge – Moving from old file cabinets to a high density system is the perfect time to ditch unneeded, outdated documents, non-functioning office equipment, and that super-size box of floppy disks from 1996 (we’re not judging!).
  3. Communicate – Unless you’re the only person who uses the storage system, your colleagues need to know how to file and retrieve properly. Post the instructions where everyone can see them, so your beautiful organizational system doesn’t fall into chaos.
  4. Be consistent – Speaking of chaos, maintain a consistent filing schedule (daily? weekly?) to avoid the filing nightmare of unsorted, unfiled documents stacked on every flat surface.
  5. Measure your success – Keep track of how much faster you and your co-workers are able to find essential documents, and file them again when the task is completed. If the system needs to be tweaked, you’ll know where to adjust. Most important, you’ll be able to chart the cost/benefit of your new, efficient filing system.

Organizing your organization system takes forethought, communication, and methodical consistency, but it’s well worth the initial effort. And the payoff – efficiency, lower real estate costs, better document security – goes straight to your company’s bottom line.

 

Photo © julief514/Fotolia.com

Celebrating the Holidays – 2016

Celebrating the Holidays – 2016

This past Saturday, December 10th NOS held its Annual Holiday Party at the Glenview Mansion in Rockville, MD with over 240 guests in attendance. This celebration is held every year to celebrate the season, to share our success with our clients, and to thank our employees and their significant others for their hard work they have put forth this year. NOS held a Toys for Tots drive, which was very successful bringing in 3 overflowing bins of toys. To greet our guests, we kept the tradition of having a bagpipe player who stood on the top porch of the beautiful mansion while all of the guests arrived for the party. One of the highlights of the celebration is the raffle drawing towards the close of the night. NOS gave away over 30 gifts to clients and guests at the party, which were given to us as donations by numerous partners and clients in the industry.

 

6 Ways to Build Your Facilities Management Legacy

6 Ways to Build Your Facilities Management Legacy

Facilities management departments do a lot of planning. Maintenance schedules, office moves, seasonal tasks – the list is endless. Planning for FM personnel succession is often low on the priority list, but a change in a key position can disrupt all the other carefully-crafted facilities plans. Writing in FacilitiesNet.com, David Lewellen offers 6 strategies for developing FM teams and planning for succession.

  1. Think strategically – evaluate the talent pool, identify training or experience gaps in likely successors, and get the right players in the right positions.
  2. Develop a structure – create advancement opportunities, set up training programs, and identify potential leaders.
  3. Open doors to the future – systematically encourage professional development and cross-training as well as education outside the organization.
  4. Don’t wait – the baby boom generation has reached retirement age, and now is the time to develop replacement talent before all that accumulated management wisdom leaves.
  5. Understand new demands – facilities management becomes more multi-disciplinary every year, and technical expertise must be combined with solid business and people skills.
  6. Don’t forget the trades – as skilled tradespeople become ever-more scarce, look to ex-military personnel for experienced techs, and develop training programs for unskilled workers.

Facilities management has evolved as a profession, and organizations are recognizing the value that a strong, stable FM department brings to the success of overall operations. A sound succession plan adds to that value and ensures the future of the department.

 

Photo © dragonstock/Fotolia.com

Change to Thrive: A Lesson from Your Mall

Change to Thrive: A Lesson from Your Mall

At the Christmas season, it may be hard to believe that malls are becoming scarcer, but it’s a trend that has been going on for the better part of a decade. A combination of overbuilding, online shopping, and demographic shifts has led to the demise of nearly 1/3 of America’s malls.

But there’s a silver (or green) lining in the retail cloud. Rather than let these massive malls stand empty, owners are following the green re-purposing movement and transforming old malls into new housing, new offices, and new types of retail. Retailers are downsizing their storefronts as they change from their traditional ways of doing business, opening up space in the malls that can be reconfigured into new forms: healthcare facilities, off-campus university learning centers, government offices, libraries, and housing ranging from low-income apartments to chic upscale condos.

Transformation is part of today’s design vocabulary. Warehouses become lofts, malls become community centers, and even the furnishings in offices, like the popular Swiftspace workstations, are reconfigured into whatever form suits the needs of the user at that particular time. Designing and planning for transformation adds longevity to an investment in almost anything: buildings, furnishings, even people. How is your business incorporating transformation into its long-range plan?

 

Photo © Minerva Studio/Fotolia.com