SUMMARY
SERVPRO of the Seacoast (Storm Team Robbins), based in Dover, New Hampshire, specializes in “extreme” restorations for residential homes or commercial structures damaged by water, fire, disaster, mold, storms and floods. When the team gets called up for a restoration project, they need their equipment to be accounted for and ready–to–go for field use at a moment’s notice.
THE CHALLENGE
SERVPRO of the Seacoast (SOS) faced a huge problem. They were using an antiquated tracking program to manage valuable equipment going between their warehouses/stockyards and the projects in the field. This was coupled with the fact that SERVPRO had to manually enter asset tag numbers for the hundreds of pieces of equipment being moved around daily. And on any one project, the average value of the equipment that is used in the field can run more than $3 million. The whole process was very time consuming and non-productive for their staff.
In addition, SOS’ assets (equipment) can be in a number of different locations at any given time, and keeping track of the hundreds of pieces of equipment located throughout the country can be a daunting task.
“We can literally have equipment on multiple states at any given time. Being able to track where that equipment is located is crucial to our business,” says SERVPRO of the seacoast it Manager Nyle Clark.
Flexible and able to be customized to track assets (such as equipment), consumables (such as cleaning fluids), and general labor.
Integrates with mobile (handheld) scanners using barcode technology to speed up the process of entering asset data and other information
Reasonably priced for their requirements
Offers software options to fully integrate it with their existing it infrastructure
Allow for tracking of assets (equipment) across multiple locations and sites
After doing research on inventory management and asset tracking solutions in the market, SOS found our asset tracking system met all of their needs and came with a reasonable price tag. SOS purchased the software along with 10 Motorola Mc55 handheld scanners and a barcode card printer.
IMPLEMENTATION
SOS says they had to undergo a learning curve when they first implemented the asset tracking system. Two things were noticeable right away: first, that our Asset Tracking Solution was flexible to their needs and second, The support team was extremely helpful with getting us started on the right path.
“As with any new program, we had to rethink how we were tracking our assets and how best to make the tracking mechanism more user friendly,” says Clark. “The barcode scanning function was the biggest asset to helping us achieve this.
Clark says that the employees had to be trained and coached on the new process for using barcoding with handheld scanners to track their assets, but the training was “easy–to– learn and follow.” Most of the staff was upto speed within days of the program being implemented, SOS was able to precisely track their assets within the first month.
THE SOLUTION
Making Restoration Jobs More Easier to Manage. SOS now tracks more than 3,000 pieces of equipment, hundreds of consumable supplies and general labor hours with our asset tracking system. Clark remarked:
“The scanning functionality [that worked] both in-house and remotely made the process of tracking our assets so much easier and much more accurate.”
In the past, consumables have been difficult for the company to track and this has meant lost revenue in terms of what they can bill the client for on any particular project or at a specific site. “We use all sorts of cleaning compounds, supplies and protective gear in the field,” explains Clark, “and we were losing thousands of dollars annually by not being able to track those consumables.”
Today, SOS knows exactly what consumables are going out of the warehouse to a project site and exactly what comes back. This makes it possible for SOS to more accurately bill for every consumable they us in the field.
SOS tracks all of its equipment by giving each piece an asset number and an asset barcode tracking tag. The asset barcode tag goes wherever that particular piece of equipment goes, allowing the SOS team to track its progress by scanning the barcode tag at different field or warehouse locations. When the SOS team scans an asset in the field with their Motorola handheld barcode scanner, they can quickly synchronize that data through back to the centralized SOS/ The Inventory System database via a remote connection. This gives the team real-time tracking capability and the ability to easily create and share reports that give an up-to-date picture of where the company’s equipment is located throughout the country at any moment in time.
Providing a Return on Investment
With our asset tracking system, including barcode technology and Motorola scanners, SOS says it is now able to track all of its assets accurately, quickly and much more efficiently — this means countless man hours saved by the automation of their asset tracking process which in turn has given the company a strong ROI. Additionally, the company has saved thousands by being able to track all of the company’s consumables that are used on site for a restoration projects and bill accordingly.
With these kind of results, Clark says, “We have recommended Warehouse management to a number of other SERVPRO franchises throughout the country and will continue to do so.”