Take a stroll through
Frontier Computer Corporation's warehouse and its easy to see that they are in the business of buying surplus new and used spare computer parts and enterprise computer systems from companies and small business across the globe. But what happens to those parts when the systems they were built for simply become outdated?
It used to be the parts continued to be stored in the warehouse, and then Frontier took a cue from the folks who have discovered small fortunes in the storerooms or at the local rummage sale: eBay is the place to sell anything and everything.
"In the U.S., maybe you couldn't give a certain part or old computer away, but in Chad or Thailand?," says John Matthews, Frontier's chief financial officer. "There's value and demand, and we happen to have, say, 700 of them. So, we're able to sell off these older parts, reduce the footprint in our warehouse, and make space for new gear without having to spend $1 million to expand our warehouse."
Parts being listed for sale at the Frontier Computer
eBay Store include hard drives, memory, servers, power supplies, printers, phone systems, used Sun parts, load balancers and more.
The ability to move older parts out of the warehouse has led to a reconfiguration of the facility. Parts are now being bar-coded, cataloged and stored according to category. This has increased efficiency, leading to faster times locating an item and a 45 percent savings in warehouse space.
"This has been like seeing something shiny buried in the sand, doing some digging, and finding out it's actually a new Corvette," says Matthews. "We're really onto something here."
Writer: Sam EgglestonSource: John Matthews, Frontier Computer
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