Please use the following two slides as a template for your presentation at NES. The Inventory Verification Process: More Than Just Finding Your Stuff Scott Hopkins, CPPS Manager Sunflower Systems

Learning Objectives Explain how to plan for the inventory verification process so that you get the best results Explain key features of the inventory verification process and how to streamline the process Explain how to analyze and act on the results of the inventory verification process

What’s the Point? Confirm that what you have matches what you say you have (and where you have it) Assess the accuracy of your asset records Update your records and add assets Assess loss rates Discover process deficiencies Measure performance and trends

What about Outcomes? Define ‘success’ up front It’s the outcome that really matters, and you can achieve the outcome in a number of ways Positive results mean you’re doing something right High loss rates (shortages) and overages could be a result of process deficiencies

What about Outcomes? Tracking shortages helps prevent waste, fraud and abuse Consistent data over time can help you tweak processes and enhance efficiency

What’s Your Plan? A well-planned inventory verification process can give you better results: Helps everyone understand the goal and how best to achieve it Provides consistency over time for comparison purposes Helps you focus on what’s important Streamlines the process, helping to minimize disruption

What’s Your Plan? How many and what types of assets do you need to find? How many people and how much time do you have? What types of ‘find’ methods will you accept? Physical only? (Barcode scans, physical touches) Electronic? (Self-discovery, RFID) Inventory by exception? (Maintenance events, transfers)

Some Considerations Some things to consider as part of your plan: If you hire external people to scan your assets, do you want them making updates to your records? What do you do with shortages? Retire them all? Keep looking? What do you do with overages? Tag them and add them into the property system? Write down the information to research later? Should you update locations while scanning, or just note where it was found for comparison?

How to Streamline Population control – lock ‘em down Just find vs. find and update Ensure you have a way to say something cannot be found Provides you with metrics on lost assets Helps determine what assets should potentially be retired in your property system Employ plenty of validation methods to ‘find’ your assets, and go back in time

You’re Done – Now What? (Tactical) Communicate – make sure people understand what comes next Error correction/processing Review location inconsistencies/update records Reconcile shortages and overages Ensure reports of survey or other documents are created, and assets retired at the proper time For overages, figure out why these occurred

You’re Done – Now What? (Strategic) Do the math – quantities, percentages and values of found/not found Good reports can give you this information People love charts and graphs (as do I, see next slide) Are there things you can do better? With inventory verification? With certain processes? With your entire process?

Inventory Verification Results

Process Tweaks (Inventory Verification) If the process took too long, consider using other validation methods in the future If there were a lot of errors during inventory verification, (e.g., in using a barcode scanner), consider additional training for next time If your results are excellent year-in-year-out, consider conducting inventory verification less frequently

Process Tweaks (Inventory Verification) If the process is expensive, determine cost/benefits of conducting regular inventory verification One benefit is publicity: Using solid data, you can show your leadership and/or the public that you care about tracking and managing assets

Process Tweaks (Inventory Control) Many shortages may mean you need better policies on letting assets out of the building Could be as simple as using hand receipts/property passes Consider employing RFID for high-value assets What kinds of assets are you losing? (Equipment Control Matrix) Keyboards? (Maybe not such a big deal) Biological agents? (Kind of a big deal)

Process Tweaks (Inventory Control) Many overages may mean your acquisition people aren’t communicating with property people about new assets Consider additional training Consider an interface from your purchasing system into your property system If the data on your records were found to be wildly inaccurate, research root cause and determine corrective analysis

What’s your Story?

Final Thoughts Inventory verification should be a methodology to verify you’re doing a good job, not an end to itself Use the process and your year-round asset management activities to re-visit the way you do things With consistent, positive results, consider fewer inventory verification cycles or random sampling

References Draft version of ASTM Standard E : Standard Practice for Inventory Verification: Electronic and Physical Inventory of Assets Jim Dieter, CPPM, CF

Contact Me Scott Hopkins