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LA County Library Materials Handling and Distribution Assessment of Facilities Services and Logistics

Submitted by Lori Ayre on Tue, 08/22/2023 - 10:16am

LA County Library provides services to over 3.5 million residents living in unincorporated areas and to residents from 49 of the 88 incorporated cities within the County,
with a service area that extends over 3,000 square miles. Library houses a collection of 7.5 million books and materials, including DVDs and CDs, with an annual circulation of 3.3 million items. Each card-holder may request and hold up to fifty (50) items, which are then delivered to the patron’s community library through interlibrary loans within the LA County Library system, resulting in a total of 1.7 million annual holds.

The Library selected Lori Ayre to complete a comprehensive business process assessment of its current materials handling and distribution process, including a cost/benefit analysis for an automated materials handling system (AMH).

Free Library of Philadelphia Logistics Consultation

Submitted by Lori Ayre on Tue, 08/22/2023 - 9:36am

The purpose of this engagement was to assist the Library in addressing the backlog of deliveries between libraries.  At the start of the engagement, the Library was backlogged by as many as 30,000 items. Over the course of the engagement, several solutions were proposed for addressing the immediate backlog and for ensuring that the status of deliveries were more closely monitored to ensure measures could be taken in advance of another backlog occuring.

Library Automated Materials Handling Consultation for Library Remodel

Submitted by Lori Ayre on Wed, 11/20/2019 - 2:01pm

Mississauga Library (Ontario) was finalizing plans for a remodel of the Central Library which was to include automated materials handling. The Library's couriers operate out of the Central Library basement, while the Circulation Dept operates on the main floor. The Library sought a thorough analysis of how best to implement materials handling for the Central Library operations as well as Courier operations. Lori Ayre provided the analysis and recommendations and worked through numerous design options with the design and Library teams.  Ayre is now working with the Library and City to procure the system.

Re-envisioning Materials Handling at Multnomah County Library

Submitted by Lori Ayre on Wed, 11/20/2019 - 1:54pm

This multi-year engagement with Multnomah County included planning for an entirely new automated material handling environment that would be rolled out as part of a capital project that would touch nearly every library in the system. It included planning a new service center that would house a 50-bin sorter and 300,000 collection and planning for the implementation of the Lyngsoe Intelligent Materials Management System (IMMS) . Multnomah County will be only the third library in the US to implement IMMS.

Seattle Public Library Automated Materials Handling Consultation

Submitted by Lori Ayre on Fri, 03/02/2018 - 8:36am

The Seattle Public Library purchased a cutting edge automated materials handling system in 2004 when it opened its new main library. While the system continues to function, it has experienced substantial wear and tear of the last 13 years.  The Library decided it was time to explore the automated materials handling marketplace to evaluate whether it was time to replace the system.  

As part of the consultation, Lori Ayre evaluated the cost of ownership of the system over the years and worked with staff to understand what was working well and what wasn't working well. She worked with the SPL team to explore opportunities available from the existing AMH vendor as well as other vendors providing competitive solutions and is assisting the library throughout their evaluation of options.

Do More With More

Submitted by Lori Ayre on Fri, 10/28/2016 - 1:37pm

My consulting practice seems to go in phases and lately I’ve been in the consortia phase.  It’s a gratifying place to be.  In each case, I see the power that comes from libraries coming together to do something better than any one library could do on its own.  In some cases, it creates opportunities that would be completely beyond a library’s capability due to lack of resources (be they human or financial or both). 

Initiatives that require costly technology or costly technology experts are particularly good projects to handle at the consortial level.  The integrated library system (ILS) is one of those big, complicated, costly technologies that can be leveraged in many ways. There’s the underlying platform (server and operating system), the application (the ILS itself), and there are the people involved in managing the system (ILS Administrator) plus the staff using the system.  Some, or all, of these components can be shared across libraries.

For example, a group of libraries can use the same server and application yet operate as independent libraries.  That’s what a group of libraries in Northern California is doing.  They are each part of a shared Koha system hosted by a service provider.  Each library administers its own system and has its own patron records and collection. But they save a lot of money by sharing that platform and that vendor contract, and by not having to manage the operating system and deal with backups and software updates.

Library Consortium Feasibility Analysis and Procurement for Central Automated Materials Handling

Submitted by Lori Ayre on Tue, 04/12/2016 - 8:33am

Peninsula Library System (PLS) is a consortium of nine libraries providing. PLS hosts a shared integrated library system (Sierra) and provides delivery services to 41 locations daily. PLS asked Lori Ayre to provide a feasibility analysis for implementing an automated materials handling system to replace the manual sorting done by couriers.  

Ayre evaluated the delivery volume, materials movement patterns, courier sorting, presorting done at the libraries, delivery turnaround times, and other aspects of the operation.  She provided the PLS Council with several options for consideration including adding a smaller sorter that would operate two waves of sorting, a larger sorter for sorting all material in one wave, providing batch check-in of incoming deliveries at the libraries, and adding an additional delivery day on the weekends.

Library RFID and AMH Consultation and Procurement

Submitted by Lori Ayre on Wed, 11/25/2015 - 5:30am

In November of 2014, Charleston county residents passed a $108.5 million referen-dum to address the Library’s building and technological deficiencies. The Library then sought the services of an architectural/engineering firm to develop a program guide manual for the subsequent Charleston County Public Library (CCPL) Capital Improve-ment Project (CIP) that would affect all 16 outlets of the CCPL system. Lori Ayre of The Galecia Group was included in the proposal submitted by McMillan Pazdan Smith to provide guidance related to RFID, automated materials handling, and workflow optimization. 

The CIP project includes building five new library buildings as well as a new Operations Center. In addition, virtually every one of the other branches would be remodeled. The scope of the original engagement included developing guide specifications for certain building systems including security, access, A-V, RFID and product standards for other library items. 

Once the program guide had been completed, Ayre was hired by Charleston County in order to assist the County in finalizing RFID and AMH product specifications and help-  ing the staff to re-envision how service delivery could be changed with the help of self-service and materials handling technologies. Ayre also developed the scope of services that would be used to identify suitable AMH and RFID vendors.