Tracking Emergency Equipment
Using eQuip To Streamline The Tracking And Reporting Of Emergency Equipment
The Customer
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Taskforce (SEPA RTF), a division of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA), is responsible for purchasing and delivering vital equipment to first responders. They receive grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and need to provide reports on the equipment inventory as well as results from annual inventory audit.
The Challenge:
The Taskforce faced the challenge of conducting an annual audit, ensuring that all purchased equipment was in good working condition. Moreover, PEMA required that the Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Taskforce create a standardized means of classifying equipment. Specifically, this standardization was to be based on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) classification for authorized equipment usage.
“We were able to provide the Department of Homeland Security with the property pass, complete with an authorized signature,” explained Bill York. “At that point the Department of Homeland Security could go right to the end user and observe how a particular piece of equipment was being utilized.”
Bill York
Equipment Manager for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Taskforce
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The Solution:
- It’s a web based inventory and asset tracking system. It allows different counties to enter, track, maintain, and retire physical equipment in the system, while the headquarter staff of the regional taskforce can pull up aggregate reports. It restricts access to information based on roles and permissions, so counties have their own autonomy while following some standard processes.
- The Property Pass in eQuip! creates a physical and virtual paper trail used to keep employees accountable for the assets assigned to them. Moreover, the “signature capture” feature allows managers to digitally sign the property pass.
- It standardizes asset data input by using a customized data import template, what PEMA uses as “DGM08”. This allows the counties to enter new equipment in a consistent way, and generate the form that can be used to sent to PEMA for reimbursement.
The Outcome:
SEPA RTF has a clear visibility to what equipment they have, where they are, and who has them. There is an increased accountability of equipment because of the audit trail and property pass functions provided by the system. Using the eQuip! for Emergency Management system allows them to provide reports and complete inventory audit in time to meet the requirements for FEMA grants.
