One of the hallmarks of this year’s crop of CIO 100 honorees is a commitment to reusing technology assets, be they hardware, software or both. Yet being truly resourceful involves more than saving money. Any organization can reduce expenses or avoid additional purchases by reusing assets it already owns. What sets CIO 100 honorees apart from the merely cost-conscious is their reuse of assets in innovative ways that actually boost revenue, improve service or otherwise enhance how business gets done.

Hardware

Organization: Air Force Flight Test Center
Resourceful reuse of hardware:
Equipment turn-in center
Payoff: $1.7 million saved since 2000
Keeping an accurate inventory of hardware is tough for most organizations, but the IT group at the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California has two unique challenges. At 470 square miles, Edwards’ hardware assets literally cover a lot of ground. Add to that the constant turnover of military personnel, and no wonder most obsolete hardware used to end up stockpiled in closets, lost or was otherwise unaccounted for.

In October 2000, the newly formed IT group established the IT Turn-In Center, outfitted with a crew of drivers and trucks to go out and pick up old equipment. For the people looking to ditch outdated hardware, a phone call to the center is all it takes. The paperwork—which, before, was more troublesome than dumping old stuff in a closet—is now handled by the center staff, who also evaluate old equipment for reuse, recycling or retirement. To date, the center has reutilized 978 items worth $829,733 and donated 618 items worth $845,198 to schools, according to Sean McMorrow, deputy CIO. For taxpayers, that adds up to a cool $1.7 million saved.

Organization: Merrill Lynch
Resourceful reuse of hardware:Internal online auction
Payoff: $500,000 in savings
Sometimes innovative ideas for reusing IT assets can happen by chance. At Merrill Lynch, the IT group was interested in open-source software. At the same time, the company’s communications department wanted to conduct a fund-raising auction for charity. During a December 2001 meeting between communications and IT, the two groups came up with an idea that would meet both their needs: build a Linux-based internal online auction that would operate much like eBay. MLXchange was born. IT staffers spent 30 business days implementing the system. So far, employees using MLXchange to sell everything from wine to swimming lessons have raised $82,000 for the United Way.

But MLXchange hasn’t been limited to charity efforts. "We always bought new hardware when there was perfectly capable hardware lying around," says John Helm, director of architecture. Using the auction software as a platform, Merrill began to post lists of hardware available for reuse throughout the company. From August 2002 to May 2003, more than $700,000 worth of hardware was traded via MLXchange, resulting in an overall cost avoidance of $500,000.