As new equipment is purchased or old equipment is replaced, employees are faced with the question of what to do with their old oscilloscope, generator, power supply, recorder, magnet, etc. The answer is to send it to Building 903, the Lab’s Excess Facility.

First, an Equipment Movement Tag (EMT -- Catalog # 7600-59226 available at Stores, x5087) must be completed. Then Transportation (x 5404) should be called to have the asset picked up. The driver will sign the EMT, leaving a copy with the original owner. Property Management recommends that individuals file this copy as proof that the equipment was turned over to Transportation’s custody. When the asset is delivered to 903, the Excess crew will sign for it, and then record the asset as being located at 903. This step takes the asset, if it has a bar-coded property number, out of the prior custodian’s name, and the property database is updated.

If the asset is in operating condition, it is made available via excess screening to other Berkeley Lab employees, then to other DOE contractors, and finally to the General Service Agency (GSA). If there are no interested parties, then it may be excessed to other Federal agencies, donated, or sold on a bid-lot sale. If, however, the asset is broken or non-functional, it is either scrapped for parts or is sold with similar like items on a bid-lot sale. Finally, the Excess operation either processes a redeployment for assets coming back to the Lab or a retirement for assets being disposed of by excess, donation, sale or salvage. Questions should be directed to Tom Hardy, manager of the Warehouse, at 4938.

Reasons to Retire Property
Property Disposition and Retirement

Only the Property Management and Excess organization are authorized to retire property. Property may be retired based on one of the following criteria:

Most of these transactions are processed at Building 903 -- the Excess facility -- following the normal equipment life cycle. The three primary exceptions are for trade-ins, stolen property reports, and write-off of unaccounted-for property. The Property Management office processes these, based on documentation provided to it by requesters or the property custodians. Property Management prepares a document for each retirement action and then processes the transactions in the property database. If an asset is found, or becomes functional, it may become an active asset again.