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OrthoRehab Asset Tracking Case Study

The Company
OrthoRehab delivers and installs medical rehabilitation devices to patient homes, as well as to hospitals throughout the United States and Canada. The two types of products stored in an Ortho Rehab depot are: ancillary products, which are “consumable”, meaning they will not be picked up by a field representative, and serialized products, which are assets that will be used over and over.

The Challenge
“It was all on paper…”

OrthoRehab has multiple field service installers who are dispatched to various locations to setup the Ortho devices for patients and train the patients in how to use the devices. When the patient no longer requires the equipment the field representative must return to the site, retrieve the device and return it to the depot. Installers each have a single depot location where equipment is stored, but a depot can support many installers.

At the time Ortho Rehab contacted AB&R®, it had no remote data capturing capability in its system. The company relied on manual paperwork from field representatives, which was then manually transcribed into the business system at a later date. Each step in the process was managed in this manner, from moves and cycle counts to installations. While this method proved adequate in the past, OrthoRehab’s growth presented the company with problems, specifically: a time lag resulting from all of the processes being predicated upon paperwork generated to update the system; billing delays which cannot be addressed until billing information is entered into the system; asset availability, which is likely to be sketchy or incomplete until information is entered into the system from the paperwork submitted; asset location; and the accuracy of the data, which relies on visual observations and transferring written data into a PC after the event has occurred. Clearly, an automated, accurate, and efficient system as needed. An earlier attempt to automate the system using a popular handheld device proved unsatisfactory as the system lacked bar code scanners.

The Solution
AB&R® proposed that OrthoRehab replace its paper system with a more accurate, robust and automated system, the components of which included a Web application to allow authorized users access to information needed at any time; a handheld application connected to the database via a cellular carrier and GPRS network that would replace the paper-processing system and provide field personnel the ability to perform all of the tasks that were paper based. This proposed solution would require multiple ruggedized handheld portable computers with an integrated barcode scanner; a server class PC for hosting the database and website; and an infrastructure – required service from a local cell carrier.

OrthoRehab accepted and deployed the AB&R® solution and the result has been greater efficiency, timely access to data, vastly improved tracking, reporting and billing information with complete reliability and operating control.

 

Learn more about AB&R® asset tracking solutions