An Easy Way to Track Firehouse Apparatus and Assets Digitally

Firefighting apparatus and other mission-critical assets are vital to keeping fire crews safe and helping them do their life-saving job. But tracking, inspecting and maintaining all that equipment can be quite a chore, particularly if you have a lot of assets, orders and maintenance to manage, and you’re doing it all on spreadsheets or paper forms.

This is why our team at Collective Data, which has designed asset management software for first responders for over 20 years, developed a simple but powerful solution called collectiveFIRE.

Our collectiveFIRE software runs on desktop and Windows tablet PCs, and it provides a complete solution to track and manage all firehouse equipment, orders and inspections from a single secure and web-based platform.

Instead of having to track apparatus manually with paper forms and spreadsheets, collectiveFIRE works together with a rugged tablet, such as Zebra’s L10 Series or ET8x Series solutions, to scan and track equipment using barcode labels. It combines this tracking data with simple and easy-to-use software tools that help you manage all your assets, inventory, inspections, maintenance and employee requests with digital efficiency and accuracy.

This means you can get out of the business of manually signing out equipment with paper forms and you can get rid of manual spreadsheets for figuring out who’s been issued gear and when it’s due back, tracking inspection results and scheduled maintenance, and logging all your related costs.

CollectiveFIRE does all of this for you with completely electronic asset management that has actually reduced many of our firehouse customers’ costs by up to 20%, reduced their equipment downtime by up to 25%, and allows them to spend 50% less time on reporting and budgeting.

The best way to get a sense for how it all works is to request a demo from our team, but here are some quick highlights of the many digital and automated asset management capabilities that collectiveFIRE delivers.

Asset Management

CollectiveFIRE provides a complete set of tools to manage every asset and piece of equipment in your firehouse throughout its life cycle, from the initial order and purchase, to current sign-outs and usage, inspections, maintenance, depreciation, and eventual replacement.

In fact, collectiveFIRE can provide a complete view of asset inventory, costs, and history, including vendors and pricing. And you can forecast asset replacement and budgeting needs with outlooks of up to 10, 15 and even 30 years.

Inspection and Compliance

With collectiveFIRE, you also get a complete set of tools to help you easily manage inspections and document pass or fail results for all apparatus, and you can create real-time maintenance requests based on inspection results. CollectiveFIRE also provides inspection templates, which you can customize to ensure NFPA compliance.

By having complete digital inspection records at your fingertips, you can always know the status of any asset and more proactively manage the process of keeping it in compliant working order. 

Preventive Maintenance

When maintenance or repairs are required, collectiveFIRE helps you manage scheduling and work electronically, with automated alerts to remind you when inspections or maintenance are due, and the ability to oversee repairs, view assignment histories, and view scheduled work.

Ordering and Employee Requests

To help you manage issued gear and employee requests for assets, collectiveFIRE tracks all sign-outs and sign-ins, auto-generates orders, and gives you information and data so you always know who is issued gear and when it’s due to be returned.

Any asset can be signed out with an employee e-signature and a printed or digital receipt for accountability and tracking. And collectiveFIRE will also alert you when checked-out items are expiring or overdue, or when reorders are needed.

Reporting

Of course, when it comes to tracking and managing your assets, inspections, maintenance, issuing, and all the related quantities, costs and details, you need access to quick and reliable reports. This is one of the core strengths of collectiveFIRE. You get access to over 130 stock reports, plus the ability to quickly and easily build custom reports with a full report engine.

Some of the most commonly used collectiveFIRE reports include:

  • Scheduled Work Performance Above Threshold
  • 30-Year Asset Replacement
  • Attached Assets
  • Apparatus Operating Cost
  • Currently Issued Items by Firefighter
  • Asset Usage
  • Scheduled Preventive Maintenance Tasks

These are just some of the dozens of reports that are ready to go as soon as you’re capturing and logging your data digitally, and if there’s additional information you need, the ad-hoc report generator and builder will help you generate it in as little as a few clicks.

Certifications and Training

In addition to asset management, collectiveFIRE also provides employee management tools for tracking certifications and training. CollectiveFIRE will show you which employees are due for certification and training, and it even has tools for tracking and maintaining emergency contact information. This is in addition to a complete toolset for managing check-outs, check-ins, who is issued gear, and when it needs to be returned.

Scheduling a Demo and Learning More About collectiveFIRE

Hopefully this quick overview has given you a clear sense of what a digital asset management solution can do for your warehouse. But there’s no better way to understand collectiveFIRE’s full potential than setting up a demo.

Contact our team at Collective Data, and we’ll be happy to schedule a demo at your convenience, to walk you through our software solution, how it works on Zebra tablet devices as well as your desktop PC, and the huge difference it can make in managing your assets more accurately and efficiently.

To get started, call us now at 1-800-750-7638, or visit us now at www.collectivedata.com/fire.