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DPA MEETING NOTES
August 2001

TOPICS

   EXCESS UNUSED EQUIPMENT

   DPA RESPONSIBLE FOR FAIDNT & FASITE SCREENS
   PURCHASE REQUISITIONS – Prop. Tag section 
   NEW CODE ADDED TO FASITE-LOC FIELD
   CHRIS’S NEW SCHEDULE
   MANAGING YOUR DIVISION’S PROPERTY 

 

 

  EXCESS UNUSED EQUIPMENT – Because the Gov’t funds most of our equipment acquisitions we are required to follow their utilization and excessing guidelines.  Those guidelines are that unused equipment must be made available to other Government agencies.  Obviously, if a Division stores items between uses that is not a problem, however, storing items indefinitely, say at Marshall Field, is not acceptable.

 

If your Division has equipment in storage, regardless of where that storage is, request that those responsible for it evaluate realistically whether or not they need to keep it and, if not, notify the Property Office so we can put it through the excess process.

 

Please be aware that the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has visited Marshall 2 or 3 times this year and each time asks when equipment items stored there are going to be excessed.  May of the items have been sitting so long that they have sunk into the ground and may no longer function.  This means that equipment which may have been of use to another Gov't Agency a few years ago when it was placed at Marshall, now is useless to anyone because of having sat out in the weather for years.  This equates to thousands of  Federal dollars wasted.

 

We expect that GSA will eventually demand that we explain this practice.  Other Federally funded organizations have lost their right to acquire Gov’t excess because they have abused that right.  UCAR does not want to end up in that situation because we depend on Gov’t excess for many types of equipment.  For example, aircraft and aircraft parts, oscilloscopes, spectrometers, trucks, trailers, etc.

 

Please notify your Division staff that equipment they are not using must be excessed, not stored indefinitely.

 

 

  DPA RESPONSIBLE FOR FAIDNT & FASITE SCREENS -  Please be reminded that as your Division’s DPA, you are responsible for information on the FAIDNT and FASITE screens.  Specifically, the following fields:

 

 

FAIDNT Fields	Required/Optional	FASITE Fields	Required/Optional
Desc	Required	Responsible ID	Required
Manufacturer	Required	Building	Required
Model Number	Required	Room	Required
Serial Number	Required	Field Proj Account Key	Optional
System Name	Optional	On Loan to Employee ID	Optional
Weight	Optional
Dimensions	Optional
Hazardous	Optional

 

The Property Office would be glad to input data for you but you need to request such input by e-mail.  In the long run, it will save you time to do it yourself but we can do it for you if you prefer.

 

 

  PURCHASE REQUISITIONS – PROP. (PROD.) TAG column – There is still some confusion about how to use this column on the PR.  In this column, T means the item being purchased on the PR needs a PPEtag issued.  S means it is part of a system that has a PPEtag.  Therefore, if you are completing multiple PRs to purchase one asset, the PR for the primary component should have T circled and the others should have S circled with the PPE# or the primary PR referenced in the “PPE NO.” block below.

 

For one Req with multiple line items, again circle T on the line with the main component and S on the other lines.

 

 

  NEW CODE ADDED TO FASITE-LOC FIELD – The Building field on the FASITE screen is limited to specific codes.  (View those entries by pressing F1 when the cursor is in that field.)  A new code has been added for items located in the field, either permanently or for an extended period of time.  That code is FLD, for field.  In the past DPAs typed FLD in the Room field but this enables you to indicate field in Building and key an abbreviation of the actual location in the Room space.  Examples are HARVD for Harvard, TAAL for Taal, Philippines,  COLUM for Columbia, ALASK for Alaska, etc.  For those who have equipment at field locations this should help in keeping track of where everything is. 

(Julia Johnson, thanks for your input on this.)

 

  CHRIS'S NEW SCHEDULE

MWF - 7:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
T TH - 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

 

  MANAGING YOUR DIVISION’S PROPERTY – We are still getting questions from several divisions on things people disposed of w/o authorization, even after the lengthy discussions and reminders about unauthorized disposals earlier this year. 

 

In order to resolve this problem, all divisions should adopt the following procedure.* 

Run the Active Asset Report for your division twice a year (fxreus), sorting by Responsible Person, and underline or highlight the assets in groups by Responsible Person.  Then copy and distribute the lists to each Responsible Person with a memo attached requesting that they verify they know where their items are and review the list for the following issues:

 

1.      Items for which the Responsible Person should be changed; provide new Responsible Person name.

2.      Items moved from the locations indicated on the report; provide updated location information.  (Temporary changes in location--a few days to a couple of weeks--do not need to be recorded in the database so long as the DPA knows where the equipment is.)

 

They should also let you know if there are items on their list that they do not believe should be there and why.  Perhaps a disposal should be processed if, for example, they plan to dismantle the asset and use it for parts.

Verifying this information twice yearly will simplify your Division’s inventory, both for you and for the Responsible Person.

 

*If you have a different procedure that is effective in keeping track of your Division’s property please let me know what it is and continue with it.  In such cases, there is no need to change to this process.