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1 week ago
2 weeks ago
| Bar Code:I Kissed My Wife and Daughter Good Bye... |
Tags: AssetCenter | AssetManager | Barcode | Best Practices | budgeting | Control | global | Inventory | ITAM | London | Manageement Buy-In | RFID | Roll Out | Solution Review | Sponsor | Vendor Review
| Written by tDubbleU |
|
...once more leaving my home in the Greater New York City area, I was off to the airport back to Heathrow airport in London. This trip and project was focused on implementing bar code scanners for another office in London. Ah, a day of requirements gathering with internal resources await my blood shot eyes and travel trodden clothes. After an all night flight I had to I had to rush to the office for a set meeting with barely enough time to grab a cup of coffee to deal with the jet lag. I recall my mother telling me that international business travel would be fun. At this moment I couldn’t see it. But, time to suck it up and deliver. Since my last project in London I have lobbied hard for this Bar Code project for roughly 1 1/2 years. The first project there required that I crawl under desks with pen and paper in hand to capture data and then manually enter that into the system. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done. This is an opportunity to test pilot a Bar Code scanning solution in the company and I had to be the one to bring this success about. I definitely understood the benefits of collecting meaningful data with this format and will greatly enhance our data capture processes as well as the robust data once coupled with the auto-discovered information in the single repository. After a year and a half I thought my lobbying was falling on deaf ears. Then out of the blue the management team sprung this project up with just a few days to make the travel arrangements and adjust my family weekend plans so that I could fly out on Sunday afternoon. I am not sure exactly what changed with the management giving me the nod to move forward, but you can't imagine the amount of adrenalin in my system when I got the call. Yes, that solidly affirms - I'm an ITAM geek. I always bring a high degree of personal responsibility to a project and since I lobbied so hard I wanted this project in particular to be a complete success from cradle to cradle. I purposely did not say grave, because I truly wanted this project to renew confidence in our data and back-end processes one office at a time. (And for those new to bar coding, the device you set your scanner in to sync data and recharge batteries is called the cradle.) My plan was to implement the solution first in this pilot office and then to migrate it the other UK, New York offices and then would expand the operations to include all offices globally. I might add that this project was attempted 10 years before, but it never really got off the ground. OK, I had to take my 1 ½ year of research and lobbying and in just a few days come up with a planned approach. I was flush with energy and had to think about what steps I needed to take to ensure success. The steps below are what occurred prior to me kissing my wife and daughter bye on the way to Heathrow airport. Note that this project was for my employer so much investigation was done in London in the environment it would be implemented in. Step One: I needed to research which vendor had the best solution(s) for my needs. Who had the scanners and who had the application for the scanner. I had to basically interview and meet with potential vendors for the hardware (bar scanner itself), the application for the bar code scanner and the bar coded labels I would use. The details for each were significant. For instance: Would I use a hand-held scanner or a stationary scanner? If I used a hand-held, how many cradles would I need? Were they wireless? Would they be batch transactions? Etc... Step Two: I needed training Once I chose the application vendor, I first bought two books on Java. Although I never coded in Java before, this was a must. I also needed to learn and very quickly, PL/SQL. The PL/SQL will be discussed a little later. Step Three: I needed a project plan I needed to create my vision so that management knew what my intentions were and how and when they would be implemented. Step Four: I needed a demo to show my direct management and their management Once my training was complete, I worked many late nights and even weekends at times to get this thing working. I was under pressure and needed to show progress. Step Five: I needed a sponsor once the demo was successful Once I completed my first successful transaction; literally scanning my own machine and creating a record in AssetCenter (now HP’s AssetManger), I was READY!!! Step Six: I needed to pin the sponsor down to get money for the project The project sponsor was impressed with what I accomplished. I now needed to create a budget of and provide line items for what I needed. Step Seven: I needed staff to buy-in to the vision and implement the product I was creating My first group to target was Data Center facilities. This group took in the shipments and retired assets. PERFECT !!! Step Eight: Train the staff I created a bar code scanner manual, which contained every possible error and process. I then held small training sessions for those most likely to use the system. Step Nine: Fight the opposition... There are always "haters". People who either wanted to do what you did or people who just don't see the vision or just have no enthusiasm for work period. I will say that I had to take at least two people to the side and ask if there was anything wrong... You cannot account enough for people’s resistance to change and their love for status quo. Step Ten: Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up Once I left, I held weekly meetings to make sure people were staying on top of their newly created responsibilities... Step Eleven: Create an easy to use information hub... With the help of PL/SQL, I was able to parse the data being produced by the scanner application. This enabled my to create web-based reports that end-users could use to either report on total number of scanned records or fix errors. Reporting is VERY powerful... Step Twelve: Auto-mode,maintenance Take a deep breath, you have just pulled off the impossible. Please take some time to comment, have you implemented or thinking of implementing a Bar Code or RFID solution? Where are you in the process? If completed what steps were critical in your success or what would you do differently now in hindsight? I look forward to interacting with your comments and feedback and will post the next ITAM Adventure to Singapore again in one FORTNIGHT. tDubbleU  |
