Outsourcing the Art Function to Relieve Staff Overload in a Corporate Facilities Department
Challenge: A national corporation with hundreds of offices throughout the U.S. was experiencing an increasing drain on corporate design resources due to the need to specify art and framing for 15-20 small art orders weekly. Likewise, larger regional offices which required 150-300 pictures needed on-site project management during the art installation to ensure proper locations and to deal with necessary on-site changes. This took corporate designers away from the home office for 3-4 days, resulting in a loss of productivity several times a year. The corporation was using 4 different art suppliers, spreading work between them.

Solution: ArtSource had functioned as one of the four art suppliers to this company for several years. We formulated a plan, together with corporate purchasing and facilities people, whereby we became their sole outsourced art specifier. In-house facilities designers now take requests from the field for artwork, re-work them based on corporate requirements for types of imagery and framing, and send them on to ArtSource. Our design team then selects the actual art pieces, measures them, selects appropriate mats and frames, and sends the art to production. A bill is sent that is reviewed by purchasing and a bi-monthly compiled bill is submitted, combining small jobs on one statement. Approximately 15-20 smaller jobs are done weekly, so this billing consolidation also relieved workload in the client's purchasing department. On larger jobs, an ArtSource design or sales person travels to site and acts as project manager, freeing the corporate staff from this responsibility.

We estimate that these steps have saved this corporation 15-20 personnel hours weekly, preventing them from having to increase their head-count in the design area.