The Dialysis Programs home office is located on the campus of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. In recent years, the program has expanded to 18 dialysis facilities and multiple physician clinics over a 900 mile range from Rexburg, ID to the north and Mesquite, NV in the south. The program employs over 300 staff members which include an 8 member Field Service and IT staff.
The expansion of dialysis facilities and service areas emphasized the inadequacy of the existing paper-based request for service and service call records. In addition, the spreadsheet based asset management and cost accounting for services was inefficient and of questionable accuracy when subjected to internal audits.
In 2007, a search for a software solution was begun. Very early in the search it became apparent that an integrated asset management, maintenance record, and cost accounting software package was not available. Technology Management Solutions (TMS) was selected because of their willingness to incorporate our needs and ideas into upgrades resulting in the implementation of an earlier version of their Services Information and Management System (SIMS) by our IT staff in 2008.
Today, SIMS is the core of our Field Service and IT departments. All equipment inventory, maintenance, and cost accounting are through the SIMS software. SIMS has improved our productivity by utilizing the following features:
- Repair request and maintenance staff notification
- Service call documentation with associated cost
- Facility and equipment maintenance cost accounting
- Preventative maintenance tracking and scheduling
- Asset tracking
- IT software licensing management
- Lifecycle costing and decision support for inventory and equipment replacement
The functionality and ease-of-use made the SIMS implementation an enjoyable process. Administrators and end-users immediately recognized the benefits of the web-based design
which conformed to their individual needs and workflows. We no longer have equipment in need of repair with illegible notes tapped to the front, garbled voice mail, or just
forgotten word-of-mouth messages to impede our day-to-day operations. SIMS provides the tools necessary to manage a wide range of equipment, staff, and facility needs, over a
large service area with efficient ease.
David Dalpias
IS Administrator
University of Utah - Dialysis Program
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While the core concepts of Lean have been around since the early 1900's, it didn't become the dominant strategy until the 1990's. In short, Lean is about eliminating waste in any business process. Waste comes in many forms. Materials, time, idle equipment and inventory are all factors in waste.
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