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Telecom Asset Tracking:

Telecom Asset Tracking: http://blog.fulcrum.net/assetmanagement/2017/5/5/telecom-asset-tracking  Some great best practices here:

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Asset Lifecycle Management

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Fulcrum Technologies Launches Capex Optimization Consulting Practice

Fulcrum Technologies, a global provider of Asset Lifecycle Management solutions, today announced a new consulting practice to help Communication Service Providers optimize their supply chain and business operations from end to end.

SEATTLE, WA. — March 1, 2016 — Fulcrum Technologies, maker of the CATS Asset Lifecycle Management software, today announced the formation of Fulcrum Consulting Services (FCS) - a consulting services organization aimed at helping Communication Service Providers (CSPs) get visibility, gain insight, and take control of their business operations.  Fulcrum Technologies has consulted for Finance Managers, Supply Chain Executives, Network Operations, and Engineering Managers from over 40 different CSPs, and is positioned to engage with additional clients who are interested in enhancing their CapEx Optimization plans.

Fulcrum, along with logistics management partners, SIs and complimentary technology partners, can assess your business operations and provide solid practices to optimize your Asset Lifecycle Management and other Supply Chain Management functions - from acquisition to retirement. This includes management of warehousing, inventory, warranties, spares, and more, and gives a precise snapshot of what is actually active (as well as the geographic location of inventory) to allow for accurate property tax payments. It also provides best practices for compliance with governing and internal process controls, which greatly reduces organizational and regulatory risks.  

FCS offers two pre-packaged offerings. The first consulting package is the “ALM Readiness Review.”  This option includes two days of on-site meetings, stakeholder interviews, detailed questionnaires, and intense analysis of key ALM areas, all followed by a detailed report of findings and recommendations.  

The second consulting package is the “Business Operations Review.”  This option includes two on-site trips - one week on the front end to do data gathering, and two days on the back end to present findings and recommendations.  The areas of study include inventory turns, equipment out for repair or return, taxation, time from receipt of asset to installation, sparing levels and philosophy, reuse, decommissioning management, and audit process and capabilities.  Following the data gathering and analysis, the consultants will produce a PMO (Present Mode of Operations), an FMO (Future Mode of Operations), a report comparing PMO with industry best practices and metrics, and an ROI analysis.

Additionally, FCS will engage with end clients and strategic partners to provide any custom engagement format desired.

“Having engaged with over 40 Communication Services Providers in the past 17 years, Fulcrum understands very well the considerations that CSPs have in optimizing their investments in network equipment. Over 50 percent of a CSP’s annual spend is on network assets and we understand the best practices associated with tracking, managing and optimizing those assets. Fulcrum’s new consulting division will provide consulting services directly to our end clients as well as through a variety of partners. These services will help our clients understand the processes, workflows, and best practices required to achieve phenomenal savings on their network spend,” states Brent, CEO and Founder of Fulcrum Technologies.

Communication Service Providers wanting more information about FCS consulting offerings should visit www.ALM.Consulting to learn more.

About Fulcrum Technologies™, Inc. Based in Seattle with Asia Pacific headquarters in Gurgaon, India, Fulcrum is the leading provider of Asset Lifecycle Management solutions for CSPs, including wireless and wire-line telecom carriers and Internet and cable providers. Fulcrum’s CATS software allows companies to track the status of their infrastructure assets in real-time and can integrate with other back-office systems such as ERP, OSS, or BSS. CATS enhances operational efficiencies, regulatory compliance, and profitability by improving capital equipment utilization, rationalizing spares allocation, and streamlining the return and repair processes. Fulcrum is used by 3 of the 4 largest telecom providers in North America and has recently been selected by one of the world’s largest providers in APAC.

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Asset Lifecycle Management Benefits

There are a number of benefits you can recognize with effective Asset Lifecycle Management:

Eliminate the purchase of duplicate equipment.

Reduce the inventory level of spare equipment.

Assure that invoiced equipment has really been received and it matches the Purchase Order.

Follow equipment through the return & repair process.

Deter theft and fraud with increased audit trail accountability.

Easier property tax and reporting compliance.

Vastly improve accuracy of ERP, OSS & BSS systems.

Reduce repair and replacement expense through warranty tracking at part and asset level.

Improve the efficiency of field technicians by helping them find spares quickly and giving visibility into network information.

A mobilized field application for Asset Lifecycle Management can track and manage the complete transactional history of assets & inventory from Acquire to Retire:

Receipts/Stocks

Transfers

Installations

Repairs/Returns

Audits/Cycle Counting

Decommissions/Disposals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhMuYxn2Nvs

To find out how to realize extensive CapEx optimization from Asset Lifecycle Management, please visit www.Fulcrum.net today.

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Fulcrum Technologies

For over 17 years, Fulcrum has been the leader for Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) for Communication Service Providers (CSPs).  The CATS solution empowers carriers to get visibility, gain insight, and take control of their network assets and inventory.  With powerful, intelligent, and flexible field decision support tools, CATS gives unprecedented Capex optimization and ROI from end-to-end.

With its CATS software and services, Fulcrum provides a solution for its customers to manage complex asset tracking and inventory management issues that are critical to their organization every day.

Track your network assets and save millions of dollars with CATS Asset Lifecycle Management.

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Track & Manage Assets

CATS provides powerful, flexible, intelligent mobile scanning solutions to track and manage your assets.  In addition, CATS users have the option to leverage e-polling for discovery of connected network devices, giving you complete visibility into new, existing, and stranded assets.  

CATS can reconcile and verify any and all asset data regardless of the source, ensuring the integrity of your asset database and reducing the need for physical audits.

From the time it is determined additional asset acquisitions are required all the way through disposal, it’s critical that these assets are tracked through every step of their lifecycle.  CATS provides the comprehensive tracking functionality however you need it.

To find out more, please visit www.Fulcrum.net today.

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Asset Database of Record: Sits in the middle of any major OSS, Financial, Engineering, or Supply Chain Management Solution.

Fulcrum’s CATS is a comprehensive suite of ALM software that will automate and improve any efforts currently underway to manage information associated with network assets for the benefit of any group within your organization. Through integration with systems like financial, engineering, supply chain and OSS or BSS applications CATS will greatly improve those systems with accurate, up-to-date information gathered using the superior mobile data collection capabilities within CATS. CATS is designed for use in the field because that is where the majority of asset transactions take place. So let CATS be the mobile front end to your critical applications that work with asset data.

CATS has played this role to enhance the supply chain, project accounting and warehouse management capabilities at carriers using SAP, Oracle and PeopleSoft financials and ERP systems. CATS has also been integrated with MetaSolv, Granite and other OSS Inventory and Planning applications to ensure accurate data and speed up delivery of critical services. The many departments within a CSP that work with network assets do so in a variety of ways. CATS will help meet the needs of every group by collecting the information needed at the moment and in the place where changes occur. These updates will be captured in real time and communicated to the systems that rely on different types of asset information. CATS will be the centralized system of record for asset data.

To find out more, please visit Fulcrum Technologies, ALM Consulting, or the Fulcrum Blog:

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Mobile Solution for Asset Lifecycle Management

The Fulcrum CATS mobile solutions help you keep track of where every asset is - across the field, warehouses, or datacenter, or backoffice.  

CATS Mobility can be configured to let any worker scan 1D, 2D, or Micro PDF barcodes with the least amount of attempts required, capturing data as it moves throughout its lifecycle.  This highly configurable software works on any major scanner or smartphone scanning platform... and can be used across field locations, data centers, back-office areas, and warehouses.

CATS Mobility has enterprise-grade security from end-to-end, ensuring the data you collect remains uncompromised. With secure log-on, user limited permissions, and encrypted password protection you can safely connect to CATS CenterPoint and other integrated systems in real-time and through a secure transport layer behind your own firewall. 

Multiple-step processes can be configured for different types of users, ensuring intelligent directed decision support and visibility into all inventory at every step, whether it’s offline or online.  Intelligent decision support tools let you see and control everything you need to accomplish your job, no matter who you are, what mobile platform you are using, or where you are located.

To get a mobile solution for your Asset Lifecycle Management needs, please visit www.Fulcrum.net today!

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Asset Lifecycle Management ROI (and ROA):

Over 50% of a CSP’s annual capital expenditure is invested in acquiring expensive network assets that are the strength of a CSP’s offering to its customers.  CATS gives CSPs significant Capex reductions and ROI.  Fulcrum CATS has given Communication Service Providers millions of dollars of ROI (return on investment) and thus ROI (return on assets) - at unprecedented levels.

A CSP needed to consolidate a massive amount of spare network equipment following a merger with another major carrier.  A CATS implementation was at the core of a  ‘rationalization’ project, which let them easily identify and reuse existing spare equipment. The customer saved over $100 million using CATS.

A different Tier 1 CSP with billions of dollars in operational assets implemented the CATS solution and achieved (using conservative assumptions) between 3% and 5% savings in spares recovery – which equated to over $60 million in savings the first year alone.

A Tier 1 Canadian carrier integrated CATS with its material resource planning tool, resulting in a massive 32% reduction of working spares inventory in the first 12 months of implementation.

A Tier 2 carrier implemented CATS to validate parts being exchanged with vendors and instantly streamlined the provision of verification data. In just the very first instance, the client realized over $1M in savings from invoice charges from just one vendor alone.

To find out how to recognize unprecedented levels of ROI / ROA, please visit www.Fulcrum.net today!

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Get Visibility, Gain Insight, and Take Control of your Assets with Asset Lifecycle Management for Communication Service Providers:

To survive and thrive in a changing environment, successful companies recognize the need to track their most valuable assets as well as deploy next generation technologies in an efficient and timely manner. As a result, these successful companies operate at peak performance while reaping maximum benefit from their capital investments.

CFO/Accounting and Finance Managers, Supply-Chain Executives, and Network Operations/Engineering Executives and Managers can all benefit from powerful, intelligent, flexible Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM), often referred to as Enterprise Asset Management (EAM).

ABOUT FULCRUM CATS

With over 60,000 active users, Fulcrum’s CATS ALM tools play a critical role in managing high-value assets that are usually found in warehouses or field locations. Currently, CATS manages over 135 million unique asset records annually at over 1.75 million locations.  Fulcrum customers depend on CATS to track infrastructure that is in the field and share that information with various back-office systems that rely on accurate data to help the organization run smoothly.

GET VISIBILITY.

The fact is, equipment and other assets move around a lot during their lifecycle – whether it is due to regular maintenance, the upheaval of merger/acquisition activity or the ‘technology cascade’ that occurs when new equipment is deployed and old equipment is reassigned to new locations or retired.

To put the velocity of high-value assets in perspective, an Asset Lifecycle Management system records the movements of each asset as that asset moves through its lifecycle (from purchase all the way through retirement). Obviously it is no longer practical to manage assets manually via spreadsheets, much less by pencil and paper.

Yet despite how daunting the task, managers have an urgent need to ‘see’ a real-time representation of their total assets in motion across networks, warehouses and departments.

GAIN INSIGHT:

Companies that implement an ALM system immediately begin to see a much clearer picture of their asset portfolio than they would otherwise get from an ordinary, stand-alone Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.

A key differentiator of an ALM system (such as Fulcrum’s CATS ALM Suite) is that it gives field personnel all the tools and training necessary to maintain real-time inventory data collection as part of their day-to-day workflow – such as smartphone asset tracking and unique barcode labels and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.

Additionally, an ALM system can automatically query any IP-enabled equipment connected to the network (via machine-to- machine communication) to monitor items such as location, condition and warranty status in real-time.

This real-time asset information collected and disseminated by an EAM system gives your organization a major competitive advantage. You will have the perspective that comes from the real-time knowledge of any measurable characteristic of your assets including current location, age, condition, performance trends and warranty status.

TAKE CONTROL:

Information is power. With the right information you can make smarter decisions, faster.

The asset information collected and managed by an ALM system can dramatically transform the effectiveness of your organization. Armed with real-time asset information, your teams in Accounting and Finance, Operation and Engineering, Planning/Supply Chain and IT can work more accurately and efficiently.

Successful organizations use CATS to take control by assessing and optimizing the lifecycle and total cost of ownership (TCO) of their asset utilization – first by assess-ing their current configurations accurately, then optimizing their asset utilization based on trending insights and finally by planning and assessing ‘what if’ scenarios for future investments.

If you want a free consultation on how to maximize your CAPEX efficiencies and ROI, contact Fulcrum today.  1.206.336.5656 -INFO@FULCRUM.NET.

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For more information, please visit www.Fulcrum.net today.

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The people who know Communication Service Providers (and their needs) the best are at www.Fulcrum.net. 

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Talk to the experts of Asset Lifecycle Management:  www.Fulcrum.net

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Visit www.Fulcrum.net today for more information!

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Capex optimization Consulting Services

To survive and thrive in a changing environment, successful companies recognize the need to reap maximum benefit from their capital investments and optimize their supply chain and business operations from end to end.  These organizations use industry best practices, world class tools, and effective data management to optimize their Capital Expenditure (CapEx) spend.  Fulcrum Technologies has partnered with over 40 such Communication Service Providers (CSP’s) and, through Fulcrum Consulting Services (FCS), is positioned to engage with clients who are interested in enhancing their CapEx Optimization plans.  FCS offers 2 pre-packaged offerings, as defined below.  As well, FCS can tailor a consulting engagement to suit the needs of our clients.  FCS can engage directly with CSP’s and/or can partner with other Logistics partners (such as MDSi, Worldwide Supply and others), technology partners, or System Integrators. Finance Managers, Supply-Chain Executives, Network Operations, and Engineering Managers can all benefit from the consulting services from FCS.  The consulting team can assess your business operations and provide solid practices to optimize your Asset Lifecycle Management and other Supply Chain Management functions from Acquisition to Retirement.  This includes warehousing, inventory, warrantee and spares management, and gives a precise snapshot of what is actually active (as well as what geography inventory resides in) to allow for accurate property tax payments. It also provides best practices for compliance with governing and internal process controls, which greatly reduces organizational and regulatory risks.  All that adds up to what every Communication Service Provider wants; full visibility, insight, and control of their Capital Expenditures from end-to-end.

Visit ALM.Consulting today to learn more, and get started!

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Infrastructure challenges addressed by CATS:  Excess spares and inventory:  Reduce spares and inventory levels with visibility into all equipment, its location, status, etc. Make smarter decisions around quantity, sharing and deployment of available spares.Return and repair of equipment:  Make certain that damaged equipment replaced with an advanced spare is returned to the manufacturer in time to avoid purchase charges. Track equipment and SLAs around equipment sent in for repair. Associate damaged assets with their replacement to keep warranty and depreciation accurate and avoid creating “ghost assets”.Paying proper taxes:  Precise, real-time views into which assets are currently in use ensures tax optimization across your assets.Regulatory compliance:  Keep financial reporting of fixed assets accurate and compliant with SOX 404 and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) through consistent use of internal controls automated by CATS. Sarbanes Oxley (SOX), IFRS:  Keep financial reporting compliant with SOX and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).  Visit WWW.FULCRUM.NET today!