Trio: Cutting Out the Middlemen in Tool Management

When Trio’s store manager Andreas Vepsäläinen became responsible for the company’s tools, the company still used pen & paper for managing them. Trio wanted to decrease time wasted on recurring events related to tools and the solution was found on Trackinno service.

The challenge in tool management: only one person had access to the information

Trio’s store manager Andreas Vepsäläinen is responsible for, besides the store, developing centralized purchasing system and managing the tools of the company. “We did not have any centralized purchasing system before, so developing the system belongs to my responsibilities. Managing the tools became part of my job description along with that,” Vepsäläinen explains.

A while ago, only one person had access to the information related to the company’s tools and the information was maintained with slips of paper or notebooks. “Everybody called this one person whenever they needed tools. He then had to find out, where the tools were at the moment, which caused tons of work,” Vepsäläinen says. “We did not have any common system, where anyone could check where the tools are going.”

After the tools became his responsibility, Vepsäläinen first thought of creating an Excel-based solution for tool management. “Then Teemu Kallio, our business director in piping renovation, told me that this kind of an asset management software exists. We came to the conclusion that Trackinno was a lot easier system than the one I was initially planning. It directly reduces my workload,” Vepsäläinen says. “Now that I think about it, I might still be working on that Excel sheet to make it work.”

Tool management with a user-friendly cloud service

At Trio, Trackinno asset management service was brought into use. The most important criterion in decision making was the ease of use because the company’s employees vary from 18-year-olds to 60-year-olds. “We have a lot of older installers who don’t easily adapt to new technologies,” Vepsäläinen says. According to Vepsäläinen, the deployment of Trackinno has gone well even though not all of the employees are technically proficient. “Usually it is enough to demonstrate how it works just once. It’s so easy to use.”

Trio’s tools were labeled with Trackinno’s QR code/NFC tags which act as links between the tools and their information maintained in the cloud service. By scanning the tag with a mobile device, each tool’s information can be accessed easily. Also, the check in/out transactions are easily recorded by reading the tag. “I haven’t come up with an easier way to do it,” Vepsäläinen says.

Trio’s installers mainly use Trackinno’s Check in and Check out features. “We have one warehouse, where we store our commonly used tools and bigger machines. Our installers go and get what they need from the warehouse and log the transactions themselves,” Andreas Vepsäläinen says. Trio also uses Trackinno for maintenance and calibration management, but these events Vepsäläinen records to the system himself. “For example, if devices are sent for maintenance or something is broken or parts are missing, I make the documentations myself.”

Time released for essential work

Andreas Vepsäläinen is content with the results the service has enabled: work has become easier for everyone using the common tools. “I don’t need to act as a middleman anymore, and we don’t need to call around the firm to ask where our tools are. Trackinno enables us to see directly, whether a specific tool is at the office or in use, and we can immediately find the right person to ask about it. In other words, unnecessary calling and investigation can now be skipped,” Vepsäläinen explains. “The service has released one person’s working hours for other uses. I’d say that we are able to save a couple of hours a day.” This also creates a competitive advantage to the company. “We can concentrate on the essential work and our assets are available when needed.”

According to Vepsäläinen, the service is also useful in warehouse planning. “Now we know how many tools we have and how much space they require. Of course, equipment is most preferably in use all the time, but it’s good to have some information about how much space they need if required. We have relatively small premises in relation to our operations,” Vepsäläinen says. Now the company can also keep track of whether tools go missing. “Before using Trackinno, we didn’t know exactly what tools we own. Now if something goes missing, at least we know what we have had before.”