It’s a fundamental of the business that we are engaged in that equipment is constantly flowing in and out of our Warehouses…..and flowing in and out between our warehouse storage areas and our engineering centres. Equipment  in our warehouses is in different ‘states’ eg needing to be checked before it can go out on an evaluation representing the client we are working for, OR just having come back from loan and needing checking to see whether its been returned complete and undamaged. 

Potentially it’s a control nightmare……. Unless you have the systems and processes that can make everything clear and efficient. 

Here are some clues as to what we do. 

NEW EQUIPMENT

Every piece of equipment that arrives, comes into the process from an ‘Order Requisition’ and that Order defines the Client and Client’s sales team for the specific piece of equipment. A barcode reading process updates each inventory record with the serial number, and later each inventory item will be reconciled so that we know the prevailing List Price, any discount we secured and the relevant Invoice reference.

Each inventory item is assigned a tracking number (a MiC number) , is labelled and box components are checked against our product set up data, and any items that we think are NOT needed for an evaluation, have a value, and may get lost… are withdrawn and flagged as such.

Equipment is then put away into a defined rack location in the warehouse, and updated as such..

Now we are ready to go

PICKING / CHECKING / SHIPPING

As every transaction has the date the customer expects to receive the equipment, its possible to construct a ‘view’ of what needs picking from its rack location to start its journey out to a customer site. Updating MiCs to ‘Picked’ status is done automatically when a Picking List of 20 or so items is produced, and then automatically those items are included in another ‘view’, of MiCs that need to be checked in the engineering area. Control comes from monitoring this Picking view every few minutes, to make sure everything is cleared down as quickly as possible

Obviously inventory is being physically moved, but the real-time nature of the system processing and updates provides a secure backdrop to what is happening.

Engineers ‘pick’ equipment  to checkout, and using scan to email they can file information to the system inventory record…. Again when the check is complete the inventory record is updated to ‘Ready to Ship’… Control comes from monitoring this view, to make sure everything is cleared down by the end of the day

Meanwhile Transport is being assigned to each transaction, so that when the handover to the carrier is made the data about the waybill number is captured, the transaction is flagged as shipped and each inventory item is updated as being ‘With Customer’.

So at every stage system updates are being made, as efficiently as possible so that there is clear record of the real-time status of every item 

RECEIVING / CHECKING

Equipment coming back from loan is reconciled against the loan record, and system updates to the loan record and the inventory concerned and the transport record that brought the equipment back from the customer, all happen simultaneously, from a couple of clicks. The Inventory is flagged as ‘Back’

Then there is another ‘view’ of all the ‘Back’ equipment for our Engineers to work through …. And as items are checked through, again the Inventory and the loan records are updated simultaneously.

As items come out from Engineering and are racked away, the status is updated again, and finish up as ‘Available’ with a Rack Location that defines exactly where the equipment is when its next journey out is ready to start.

So again at every stage simple system update routines are used to make sure that there is absolute clarity as to what has happened (and what hasn’t happened) no matter whether you are looking into the inventory record, or the loan record that the inventory is recorded on.

LOAN STATUS TRACKING

In the same way that it’s vital to manage inventory through all the processes required with going out and coming back in, with status changes at every stage….. the same is true with managing and controlling loan records.

A key activity in managing a loan is to get a customer to sign up against T’s & C’s that ensure that they will exercise a duty of care over the equipment while they have it, and return it complete and undamaged. That sign-up is a click on a webpage, with associated emails generated that ensure that there is a clear sign-up.

Each loan record has a ‘call log’… and this is a combination of filed emails that were specifying  and clarifying the loan requirements and have been filed using Scan to Email… along with calendarised actions, and appropriate notes. It’s the calendarised actions that are used by the Loan account managers, to make sure a loan stays on track. Several actions are scheduled automatically once the loan is created, but many more are made by the Loan Account manager to make sure the next required step is always being pushed to make sure that the required delivery date is achieved, or that associated activities are being monitored closely.

Call logs get extensively used in the ‘Collection organising phase’ of a loan. The tool provides a good way of recording the essentials of customers comments and feedback, and a means of keep pushing to get equipment back. We believe this tool has made a huge difference to this part of the process, often recognised to be the most challenging.