The IT half of a decommission has a different chain of custody from the furniture half and should be scoped separately. Data-bearing devices need documented wiping or destruction with certificates, network and AV gear has resale value that is usually ignored, and cabling and racks are the items most often left for the general contractor to bin. Decide who owns the IT scope before the move-out, because in the gap it becomes nobody's.
A decommission has two inventories. There is the furniture, which is heavy, visible, and worth money. And there is everything with a serial number on it: monitors, docks, displays, AV, network gear, the server closet nobody has opened since the last IT lead left.
These get handled by two different vendors, hired by two different departments, on two different schedules, sharing one freight elevator. That is where move-out timelines break. Not because either vendor is bad at their job, but because nobody owned the sequence between them.
Why the two jobs collide
- The furniture holds the IT Monitor arms bolt to worksurfaces. Docks sit in grommets. Power and data run through the panel system. You cannot pull the desks before you pull the hardware, and the crews that do each are different people.
- One elevator, two schedules In a downtown tower the freight window is the scarce resource. Two vendors who booked separately will discover that on the same morning, in the lobby.
- Chain of custody runs on different rules IT assets carry data, so they carry documentation requirements furniture does not. Serialized tracking and certificates of destruction are not optional, and a furniture crew is not set up to produce them.
- The value is judged backwards IT gets treated as the valuable inventory and furniture as the disposal problem. On most floors the tonnage and much of the recoverable value is in the furniture.
A sequence that holds
- One inventory, two columns Walk the floor once and record both. Furniture by zone, IT by serial. Two separate walkthroughs produce two documents that disagree, and the disagreement surfaces on the last week.
- Data-bearing first, always Anything that stores data leaves the building under a documented chain of custody before general clearance starts. This is the one step that cannot be compressed later.
- Detach before you demount Arms, docks, cable management, and screens come off the furniture as their own pass. Skipping it means damaged worksurfaces and a lower grade on the resale, which is a real cost, not a cosmetic one.
- Share one elevator calendar One booking, one schedule, both vendors on it. Whoever is coordinating the move owns this, and it should be written down rather than assumed.
- Route displays and AV carefully Large-format displays, room systems, and conference AV are the category most often thrown out and most often worth something. They fall between the two vendors, which is exactly why they get skipped.
- Collect both sets of paperwork Certificates of destruction on the IT side, diversion weights and donation receipts on the furniture side. Your reporting needs both and they are only collectible while the job is running.
What we do and what we do not
To be direct about scope: we handle the furniture. Task seating, systems, storage, conference, and lounge, from inventory through resale, donation, and recycling, with the documentation attached. We do not wipe drives and we do not issue certificates of destruction.
What we do is sequence against whoever does. On a coordinated project the IT vendor takes the first window, we take the zones behind them, and neither crew waits on the other. That coordination is unglamorous and it is most of what keeps a move-out on schedule.
The categories that fall between the vendors
| Item | Where it usually goes | Where it should go |
|---|---|---|
| Monitor arms | Landfill with the desk | Resale. High demand, small, easy to move |
| Large-format displays | E-waste | Resale or donation if functional |
| Conference room AV | Abandoned in place | Assessed. Room systems hold value |
| Power and data whips | Cut and scrapped | Kept with the system they belong to |
| Sit-stand controllers | Binned as e-waste | Kept with the base. Without them the desk is a table |
| Personal lockers and pedestals | Overlooked entirely | Resale. Every hybrid office is short on both |
That last column is worth a real conversation before the crews arrive. Sit-stand controllers separated from their bases is the single most expensive small mistake we see on Bay Area move-outs, and it is covered in buying used sit-stand desks.
Planning a move-out with both halves in play? Start with the decommission intake and tell us who is handling the IT. We will schedule around them. The full sequence is in the Bay Area decommissioning checklist.