Wireless Inventory and Job Control at the Engineering Department

 

Scenario

Maintaining optimum inventory control at that critical “last mile” of work activity, while proving upper management with timely reporting on the progress and completion of projects at all locations within the rail system.

Constraints?

The existing Warehouse Management System, although appropriate for controlling parts inventory in the central facility, lacks the ability to provide real-time inventory control at the point of use, and is largely dependent on a paper-based work-order and job assignment system that is out of date and difficult to maintain. All field information must be inputted after the fact, thus contributing to unnecessary limitation on Signals’ management performance.

 

What to do?

Among the many choices are, (1) Continue to maintain/modify an old out of date software system (2) Conduct extensive review/research and needs assessment that may take years to complete and execute (3) fast-track an affordable solution that could be interfaced with the WMS and provide immediate relief and cost savings.

 

The fast-track solution is TaskCaddy, the Mobile Deployment Management System that has the following features…

Ability to provide inventory accounting for material used in the field.

Ability to account for recycled inventory used in the field and return to stock or reclaim for repairs.

Ability to return stock to inventory.

Ability to automatically transfer data from the field to the server without human intervention.

Ability to create purchase requisitions.

Ability to issue inventory kits to the job.

Ability to match project requirements against the skills of the personnel database.

Ability to compute actual costs and compare with planned time.

Ability to identify subcontracts and pay based on time spent on the task.

And Much More…

How can TaskCaddy assist you?

	Description of Activity/Event	TaskCaddy Function
	You build a engineering maintenance model of tasks for all common events and activities	Task Master Data Base
	You know what parts inventory is required for each task	Inventory Required by Task
	Based on the Maintenance model, you already know how long certain activities will take	Project Standards
	Based on the actual from the previous visit you are able to update your setup standards to reflect today’s costs	Project Costs
	You already know the best FT(Field Technician) to assign to certain tasks	Previous Project Performance
	You also know who is your customer representative at each location	Customer Location Contact Person
	You also know of other ongoing projects, the length of time required; the Fts assigned and the projected costs	Current Project by Location
	You could reassign the FTs to other projects, dynamically	FT Assignment

Using TaskCaddy, the Project Manager (PM)..

1. Selects Project Bill of Task from previous visit
2. Selects Copy of previous project into New
3. Reviews inventory status
4. Reserve inventory
5. Issues inventory
6. Assigns scheduled start dates and schedule end dates
7. Selects FT for project

 

TaskCaddy outcomes?

• New project is created
• Automatically sends project tasks to selected FTs mobile PDAs
• Inventory is pulled and staged
• Setup and task steps instruction are already predefined in the device
• You receive instant feedback on problems
• Instant feedback on task completion and inventory usage via the PDA

Benefits of using TaskCaddy , the Work-Smarter solution…

-Frees up Facilities Management to focus on planning

-Provides metrics for activity based costing

-Makes projects more predictable

-Optimizes utilization of personnel during project execution

-Seamlessly transacts inventory management activities

-Gives operation visibility of each location, real time

-Ability to compare activities between selected job sites

-Ability to identify underutilized workers, immediately

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