charles statman

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 JLL Marketplace with a View from the Field

“I’d tell any JLL employee who is not using JLL Marketplace for their account to get with the program!”

– Charles Statman, Operations Manager (Applied Materials)

Charles Statman is a JLL Operations Manager responsible for maintaining a Research and Development Wafer Fabrication plant for JLL client Applied Materials. Charles and his team of 18 Union Stationary Engineers maintain 95 percent uptime across Applied Material’s chemical and water treatment plants, clean rooms, air scrubbers, HVAC and Building Management Systems often conducting their work around massive storage tanks of corrosive and volatile chemicals. This team began using JLL Marketplace in March of this year and it has quickly become their standard for ordering all their supplies to keep this unique facility operational, safe, and environmentally accountable. We recently sat down with Charles to learn more about their experience with JLL Marketplace at Applied Materials

JLL Marketplace: Charles, thanks for taking the time to tell us about your experience with JLL Marketplace. You obviously run a very unique facility. Tell us what that is like.

Charles: Even during the constraints of COVID-19, we’ve been working on site around the clock at Applied Materials. Our client never sleeps, so neither do we - 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Because of the volatility of some of the chemicals we work with, our plant maintenance goes beyond basic HVAC, plumbing and electrical. For instance, at our facility we have HVAC units that run on banks of 40 filters at a time. Our site also includes wastewater treatment for heavy duty chemical waste. When you’re filtering hydrofluoric acid, sodium hydroxide and anti-scalants through a maze of pumps, motors and 20-ton scrubbers, something is bound to go wrong. We need to be ready to respond to issues that arise as quickly as possible to achieve our 95 percent uptime target.

JLL Marketplace: That certainly is a unique environment compared to other facilities JLL operations. How does JLL marketplace fit in?

Charles: In this strange “new normal” that we’re working in, the speed of fulfillment through JLL Marketplace has been a major differentiator for our client. I often get calls late at night saying, “Something is broken, we need parts now.” Using JLL Marketplace, I can have them ordered, approved by management and ready for pickup at Grainger will-call the next morning. Since we operate in a clean-room type of environment with protocols only heightened by COVID-19, it may take weeks, yes, WEEKS for something to work through the client’s receiving dock to get to our guys. The time savings we’ve been able to leverage with Grainger’s in-store pickup have been phenomenal. Applied’s previous provider didn’t have anything like JLL Marketplace so they aren’t used to this kind of turnaround. They are very pleased with our performance as JLL as a result.

JLL Marketplace: Besides the speed of getting what you need, how else does JLL Marketplace help?

Charles: Since we started using Marketplace in March it quickly became our standard for our common supply needs as we expected. But with an R&D facility, we also have many one off, hand-built tools and parts that we historically purchased from local, mom and pop-type shops. With JLL Marketplace we’ve been able to leverage Grainger’s special order desk to offload that sourcing responsibility to JLL Marketplace, which saves us the time of sourcing these one-off product needs and allows us to focus more on the client. That’s been a pleasant surprise.

It has also really helped us with our spending process. For instance, the purchase history reminders we get on the platform keep us from ordering things like a bulk shipment of air filters too quickly after our last order. Thanks to the ease of use and savings driven by Marketplace, our spending was reduced by 75 percent. The discounts are often such a high percentage I have to look twice! The union engineers really like the platform as well and want to know when they’ll be getting their own credentials so they can start ordering too.

JLL Marketplace: Any final words of wisdom for those considering JLL Marketplace for their client?

Charles: Based on my experience, I’d tell any JLL employee who is not using JLL Marketplace for their account to get with the program! It’s as easy to use as Amazon AND – it allows you to easily track all your orders in one place. It is easy, transparent and fantastic! 

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