ChristinaTremel
commented
6 months ago Scoping Notes 3/18
Background
- SBO embarking on a multiyear process to refine SBO inventory recording, purchasing, and storing
- What they are doing now -
- Project that Richards leading - teams to inventory power tools and portable radios (high dollar value)
- Assigned per work group
- 9 work groups in the 3 divisions. Haven't reached out to Forestry yet, but will.
- Project that Richards leading - teams to inventory power tools and portable radios (high dollar value)
- Bringing in OPM to do an evaluation on the space
- What space do they have, how do we currently use it, how could we move forward using it
- Eventually they will want to track other commodities - materials
- Showed the PPE Inventory on the Finance and Purchasing Knack app
- UER uses power tool "kits" and a color coded process. They check out a kit and return a kit at the end of the day.
- Still learning how each work groups manages their inventory
- Richard noted that the "Manage Hardware" tracking is the most similar to what they would like to do
Goal
- Goal: get a solid list of what they have and keep that inventory up to date
- Know what's where, specifically Power Tools are hard to track
- Goal for this ticket: get an inventory back end
- Tried with excel and it did not work well
Requested Process
- Want to convert the work sheets used for inventory to paper so Superintendents and Supervisors can do inventory on paper
- Worksheet: power tools & radios
- Inventory was done in September of last year
- Info about tools: tool, model number, serial number, status, notes
- Scan into Dave's team
- Looking for a back end to put these work sheets into
- Want to use back end to run reports and audit
Build Needs
- Page similar to "Manage Hardware"
- Page similar to "PPE Inventory Counts" that counts per inventory item
- SBO won't be ready to manage that page yet, but this will be getting them set up for the way other groups are structured
Next Steps
- Richard will send us the spreadsheet that he's tracking and the forms the supervisors/superintendents use
- DTS to do Project Evaluation & Project Index and then schedule a Project Kick-Off
We need a backend database or similar for inventory applications. We are starting the process of inventorying power tools and portable radios on a monthly basis. We need the application to (1) capture initial information about our inventory; (2) update status of the inventory on a month to month basis [e.g., present, missing, retired, needs repair, etc.]; and (3) report on status of inventory, by workgroup, division, and/or all of SBO. Reports should also be available to support inventory audits and report on results.
We tried doing an Excel-based process internally, and it failed pretty miserably. So we're hoping to find a better solution.
See above. Hopefully we can leverage applications created for other TPW inventory programs in Signals or Signs & Markings. Application should be pretty user friendly. Should support importing existing inventory data from Excel/CSV (we already have most of the current inventory data in workbooks). Should also support manual updates from paper-based forms.
It shows all of the attributes described above.
Users will primarily be SBO Superintendents, Supervisors, DMs, and office personnel. Data input into the program will be performed by SBO admin personnel. Other personnel will run reports out of the system.
David Andersen
['None']
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We tried using Excel to both collect inventory data and to store information. Did not work well for either purpose.
We're piloting a paper-based inventory tool right now for supervisors to update status of their inventory on a monthly basis. And looking for a back end to hold the data.
We'd like to get it relatively soon, if possible. But we don't have firm deadlines at this time.
I believe Signs & Markings and the Signal Shop have instituted inventory programs that might be leveraged to meet our needs.
Request ID: DTS24-113175