Based out of British Columbia, Wildstone Construction Group is a family-owned general contracting company with operations spanning western, central and northern Canada.
Wildstone’s projects include multi-residential contracting, construction of water treatment plants, and powerplants. Being a people-first business, Wildstone believes in providing a better building experience and serves the community by taking on significant government projects and providing maximum local opportunities.
Adopting EZOfficeInventory for accurate asset tracking
Mike Melissen, vice-president and co-owner of Wildstone, discussed the asset management challenges the company was facing before they switched to EZOfficeInventory. As a construction company, Wildstone owns a wide range of high-value heavy equipment which they were tracking with Excel spreadsheets. This manual method led to inaccurate and siloed information, which caused operational inefficiencies. As the problems piled up, Mike felt that the adoption of asset management software across the organization was inevitable.
He did extensive research and considered different softwares based on multiple factors such as accurate tracking, customization capabilities, and ease of use etc. After testing several different options, he chose EZOfficeInventory because of powerful customization options including access control, as well as Custom Fields, Roles, and Reports.
‘EZOfficeInventory was hitting the mark on everything we were looking for so we decided to give it a go and it has been a pretty good journey.’ says Mike.
Smart asset tagging with EZOfficeInventory
Today, Wildstone uses EZOfficeInventory to track over 1000 assets which include high-value machinery like excavators, trucks, loaders, trailers, drills, skid steers and more. With so many different categories of heavy equipment, it can be a challenge to stay organized.
They have tackled this challenge by developing a 5-digit unit number system with EZOfficeInventory so they can label and track their equipment according to their own unique requirements.
For example, every excavator’s asset number starts with 101, and every skid steer’s number starts with 102 and so on. Mike explains that this system allows them to logically create hundreds of Groups and Subgroups within EZOfficeInventory so they can easily and quickly search for a particular asset.
Streamlined and accurate asset tracking
According to Mike, a centralized database with real-time and accurate information about their equipment has helped Wildstone improve operations. Now, they are able to precisely track every individual asset, and check its availability status as well as location.
Here is a common use case: A truck is being tracked as an asset and managers can easily view its driver, location, odometer reading and the services being performed. This real-time information is crucial for effective lifecycle management and maintenance.
The company is using EZOfficeInventory across different office locations where Users can log in as administrators to take required actions on the equipment
The value in Custom Reports
While shortlisting solutions for asset management, a customizable software was a top priority for Mike.
‘The ability to set up our own Custom Reports for putting up what we wanted was a big element for us.’ remarks Mike.
Management at Wildstone uses Custom Reports in EZOfficeInventory for a monthly analysis of Asset trends. Custom reports including monthly audits for vehicles, and heavy equipment location trends are circulated throughout the organization and serve as reminders for users to constantly update Asset Locations on different job sites. Mike also runs regular Custom Reports based on different Locations’ Assets. This increases accountability and helps ensure that the Users in charge of Assets are utilizing them correctly.
Keeping the momentum going with regular servicing
In addition to accurately tracking assets and getting valuable asset insights, Wildstone also uses EZOfficeInventory as a quality control measure for their heavy equipment and vehicles. They regularly book their equipment for servicing, and ensure high-quality servicing by uploading service documents along with the details of mechanical problems the equipment may be experiencing.
This practice also helps them while procuring new equipment, as they can check on the service history of the existing equipment to analyze any mechanical fault trends. Furthermore, to get the most out of high-value equipment, the company also attaches operational manuals to ensure proper usage. The Users in the field are able to easily pull up these documents as guidelines when using the equipment.
The future with EZOfficeInventory
Mike explains that while the system is powerful, it is also easy to use which has resulted in widespread adoption – supervisors and foremen on different projects are regularly using EZOfficeInventory. Mike adds that Users across their organization are familiar with EZOfficeInventory features and are comfortable working within the system.
The great customer support is another important benefit for them and they plan to explore more features in the future to further enhance their asset management.
