Hospital Asset Management


Beverly Hills Transfer of Gardena and Beverly Hills CA, agent for Allied Van lines, teamed up with Asset Controls, Inc and Trackware Technologies, developers of Windfall Software, to track and manage one of Southern California’s largest hospital construction projects in 2007.

While no stranger to the world of hospital storage and relocations, Beverly Hills was tasked with orchestrating the movement and staging of over 40 trailer loads of highly sensitive medical, lab and emergency equipment. The 265 bed hospital underwent a construction update of the entire facility in August, requiring over 4800 items from four floors and 15 departments to be identified, removed and stored. All activity systematically taking place over ten days.

“There was a lot of preparation for this project. We met with the construction firm as well as the hospital management team several times to put together the game plan.” said Chris Fries, VP of Beverly Hills Transfer. “Timing was of an essence, each floor and each department had to be moved on a specific day at an exact time so there was no room for error. About 30 days in advance of the move day we had teams of men methodically go through the hospital, floor by floor bar-coding and scanning each item and associating that item to its room. This was key for keeping track of all products once the move started.”

The crews, closely managed by the Sales Manager and salesperson of the project Stephen Glaab, had five days to move all 4800 pieces to a staging area of temperature controlled trailers that were manned 24/7. Then the reverse, five days to move everything back into the hospital. Most of the days required 125 men working around the clock in two 12 hours shifts. It was a tight

It was a real team effort every step of the way,” Chris added, “Our crew & staff worked long hours and did a super job. ACI/Windfall provided a consultant to work with us to help organize the bar-coded data and get all the reports needed for the hospital staff. It all worked well and the customer was very happy, that’s what counts.”

LACCD


LACCD is the largest community college district in the United States educating more than 130,000 students at nine campuses, spread throughout 36 cities in the greater Los Angeles area.

ACI partnered with Brown & Associates and DMJM to perform an inventory and reconciliation on 9 college campus's throughout the LACCD. Over 50 students were used to perform the task using portable Pocket PC data collection devices. During the summer, the students swept through campus after campus to collect and reconcile over 300,000 assets.

Harley Davidson

Windfall Tracks Harley-Davidson's 100th Anniversary
Harley Davidson's 100th Anniversary Tour and Party is now in the history books. Nine cities around the world experienced the world's largest rolling birthday party-a Harley extravaganza.

Imagine 25 acres of adrenaline including museum-quality exhibits, spectacular collections of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, musical entertainment and children's activities.

Asset Controls, Inc. (ACI), developers of the Windfall Bar-Coded Inventory Software, knows these types of large projects well. They have worked with movers over the past 9 years to help them expand their traditional business service lines. From hotel and hospital installations to tracking museum pieces from city to city, ACI works hand in hand with movers every day.

Windfall, ACI's software for the moving and storage industry, is installed in over 150 sites throughout North America.

As part of a team of companies, Harley-Davidson and Atlas selected ACI for their expertise. With 25 acres of exhibits and close to 100 trailers to haul the tour, the team had to work together closely to achieve the high standards that accompany the name Harley-Davidson.

ACI introduced the Windfall Software because Harley was faced with the challenge of managing and tracking items throughout the unloading and loading process.

David Blair, Corporate President, Atlas agent Ace Worldwide, heads up the Atlas team responsible for the physical transportation of the show's elements - "Windfall provided a solution to Harley's request and helped us secure the proposal. On site during the show, Windfall helped recover misplaced items and was very valuable as a resource for inventory control."

Early in the process, ACI worked with Harley-Davidson to develop custom bar-coded labels for the crates used to transport items. Then using Windfall, labels were generated for all the trailers and ocean containers for the international segments so that each one could be identified by simply scanning a bar-code.

This process was then tied together within the software so that each piece could only be scanned onto the correct trailer or ocean container. If a piece wasn't scanned or was put somewhere else, the portable data collection device would notify the user immediately. This process made sure all items in the tour were accounted for every time the tour left for the next venue.

A similar process was developed for scanning items at the unload process to verify pieces were delivered and also for storage of empty packaging at each venue. To add more value to the process, using the Windfall Internet Access System, all items and their information were put on the Internet for event planners in various cities and countries throughout the tour to use. The site was also used by customs officials at the various international destinations to verify exhibit information thereby expediting clearance and entry.

Allen Clem, Director of Global Logistics Planning/Engineering at Harley Davidson - "By using Windfall on the tour, we were able to effectively track and manage all the items with ease for both the domestic and international destinations. The Internet based "viewer" provided very quick and valuable assistance for information requested by the various customs agencies involved in the global tour."

It was an honor to be part of the Harley-Davidson's 100th Anniversary tour. They trusted us to track their most valuable items, worldwide. Harley has a reputation for quality and excellence; at ACI we strive for these same standards." Joe Bippen, Chairman, Asset Controls, Inc.

Associa


Founded in 1979 in Dallas, Texas, what is today Associa began as a small local property management firm providing services to apartment and condominium projects. During its first decade in operation, the company shifted its focus entirely to the management of condominiums and homeowners associations. With more than 30 offices across the nation and growing, Associa is now the largest company in the United States devoted exclusively to the management of community associations. Today, Associa is a nationally recognized leader in the community association management industry, representing hundreds of thousands of homes in thousands of communities across the United States.

Associa used ACI to help them get control of their assets at all their facilities nationwide.  By providing software, hardware and implementation crews dispatched to all the locations, ACI created a database complete with asset information, digital images of assets & building and floorplans for every site.

ACI then partnered with Aperture Technologies to make the information into a CAD format. So now Associa can open up an electronic floorplan and click on an asset and see all its information.

Anheuser Busch

Anheuser-Busch is the world's largest brewer, operating 14 breweries, 12 in the United States and two overseas. The company currently brews approximately 30 beers for sale in the United States.

ACI was hired to help AB get control of their telecommunications equipment. Employer to 1000's of people, AB had a challenge of keeping track of their office & cell phones, walkie-talkies, and radios. Phone jacks also needed to be tracked in order to make sure that the correct phone was plugged into the correct switch.

ACI provided a software and hardware solution whereas everything was bar-coded and tracked to a given location or employee. Electronic property passes are now being used to sign in and out equipment.

Norlight Communications

For 32 years now, Norlight has been guarding the data of valued business customers. To them, "looking out for number one" means putting our customers first, and working with them to build a custom network solution. They deliver on this service promise through dedicated guardians and unique business solutions. Unlike competitors, the Guardians of Data assign a Dedicated Account Team (DAT) to every customer, not just the largest ones. This team of dedicated professionals will walk though a Coordinated Installation Process, keeping customers informed every step of the way and ensuring no surprises. (In case of a pop trivia quiz, Norlight's DAT's include an account executive, an account coordinator and a network applications engineer.)

Norlight uses ACI's systems to manage product in their main warehouse and point of presence (POP) sites around the northern United States. Technicians can access the main warehouses inventory over the Internet and order replacement parts from the field. These are then shipped to the correct POP site so the tech can install the new part.

The technicians can also inventory the entire POP site so that corporate knows exactly what's in each site for preventative maintenance and accounting purposes.

Four Season Hotels

Founded in 1960 by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Isadore Sharp, Four Seasons has followed a targeted course of expansion, opening hotels in major city centres and desirable resort destinations around the world. Currently with 63 hotels in 28 countries, and more than 20 properties under development, Four Seasons will continue to be on the thinking edge of innovation, making business travel easier and leisure travel more rewarding.

Working with Graebel Companies, ACI helped put a solution together to help manage inventory for a new hotel being built in the Bahamas. All product used to furnish the hotel was shipped to a central receiving warehouse in Florida.

The warehouse would receive electronic PO's from Four Seasons notifying them what was coming. Once received, everything was inventoried and put on the Internet so that all parties knew when the product arrived. An electronic file was also produced automatically to update Four Seasons systems that the product arrived.

When the Bahamas team was ready, an order came through and the correct product was shipped to the build site.

Some Other Projects That We Partnered With Movers On