AIM Investments Discovers the Value of Accurate Furniture & Equipment Tracking
September 22, 2005--Boston, Massachusetts-With approximately one million square feet of space and over 2,000 employees, AIM Investments needed an accurate inventory of its fixed assets down to the room level. Today, AIM uses ARCHIBUS/FM-the #1 Total Infrastructure and Facilities Management (TIFM) solution in the world-to track over 95,000 fixed assets, including details such as description, standard, photo, category, building/floor/room, purchase price, date of purchase, manufacturer, warranty information, catalog number, and more.
Significant tax write-offs are also possible now thanks to the accurate, defensible records AIM keeps. In one recent year, the company was able to account for $2 million worth of disposed assets, which had been donated, sold, or brought to the salvage yard. In previous years, the value of these assets had been unknown.
Saving Time and Money
"We've seen savings in both money and time," says Glenn Gallway, Systems Administrator for CAFM [Computer-Aided Facilities Management] at AIM Investments. "Time is no longer spent sifting through the products in the warehouse or on the jobsite in preparation for buildouts." Meanwhile, AIM's inventory error rate, or the percentage of fixed assets that can't be accounted for, now stands at .008%--well under the 5% rate that the company strives for.
In addition to tracking fixed assets, AIM also tracks space occupancy across its facilities. Vacancy reports are sent to the executive committee on a monthly basis, based on the information in ARCHIBUS/FM. During a period of downsizing, the company was able to consolidate staff from two buildings into one, reducing its leased space by 80,000 square feet.
Submitting Accurate Insurance Claims
Having detailed information on furniture and equipment proved essential when AIM's Houston offices sustained a flood from Tropical Storm Allison. "After the flood, we generated reports from ARCHIBUS/FM to give to the insurance adjuster, listing all the items we lost and their value," says Gallway. "This helped ensure maximum reimbursement for the damages. The claims adjustor did not even question the claim, it was so thorough."
About ARCHIBUS, Inc.
ARCHIBUS is the #1 provider of Total Infrastructure and Facilities Management (TIFM) solutions in the world, with annual sales of ARCHIBUS/FM-related products and services exceeding $1.5 Billion (US). With ARCHIBUS/FM, organizations can use a single, comprehensive, integrated solution to make informed strategic decisions that optimize return-on-investment, lower asset life-cycle costs, and increase enterprise-wide productivity and profitability-reducing their infrastructure and facilities related costs by as much as 17%. Today, more than 3,000,000 ARCHIBUS/FM users collectively manage 1.4 Million buildings around the globe. Available in over 130 countries and more than seventeen languages, ARCHIBUS/FM is supported through a global network of over 3,000 corporate real estate, information technology, infrastructure, and facilities management professionals.
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, ARCHIBUS, Inc. has pioneered computer-aided infrastructure and facilities management techniques since 1982. For more information, call 617-227-2508, e-mail info@archibus.com, or visit www.archibus.com.
