Expertech - Capital Tool Inventory

• Telecommunications

• Warehouse & Inventory Management

• Inventory Management

Costly tools used to splice fiber optic cables are an important part of Expertech’s operational and capitalized expenses, but the company did not have an automated system in place to track their tools and optimize their usage. The existing data in its tracking system was inaccurate and required manual updating, making it essential for the company to implement an efficient process to track and follow up on its capital tool inventory.

Expertech decided to partner with the Research In Motion (RIM) Corporate Developer Program (CDP) and deployed BlackBerry smartphones to enable its technicians to communicate. With this deployment, Expertech also developed a custom BlackBerry application in-house that would inventory and track capitalized tools in near real-time and automatically upload the data into the company’s SAP system.

• [Process Optimization - Real Time Asset Tracking]
  The location of tools can be identified in near real-time in field operations.
• [Efficiency Improvement - Operation]
  The audit process was accelerated, enabling the same workforce to perform more audits.
• [Cost Reduction - R&D]
  Ongoing application development and improvements are relatively quick and inexpensive to implement due to the system's flexibility.

• Inventory counts are more accurate and take 85% less employee time than previously.