Devastating natural disaster triggers the need for Real Asset Management International (RAMI)

Wink Companies, LLC spends 3,000 man-hours evaluating destroyed assets after Hurricane Katrina

Wink Companies, LLC invested in Real Asset Management International’s (RAMI) inventory and tracking management software during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Established in 1970, Wink has 870 clients and specializes in commercial and industrial engineering, architecture, surveying, project management, and procurement services.

In the midst of a tremendous growth period, Wink now has over 630 employees located in 9 separate offices. Initial considerations for an asset management system began back in 2003, although the project never came to fruition. Two years later on August 28, 2005, Hurricane Katrina demolished Wink’s corporate headquarters in New Orleans. With no record of what was in the building, it was impossible to estimate the value of what had been lost. After 3 months of evaluating and recovering destroyed materials, estimating replacement costs, and processing paperwork, Wink finally placed the $2.6 million insurance claim they needed to finance their rebuilding efforts. The recovery process was considerably more difficult due to the lapse in time between when Katrina hit and when the company actually received the insurance funds. 

“About six weeks after the hurricane we decided that we must implement an asset tracking and inventory management system, no matter what the cost – it wasn’t an option,” said Russell Carter, Wink’s Purchasing Manager. “We truly experienced the failure of not having a system in place beforehand.”

After evaluating ten separate software solutions, Wink selected RAMI. “Series4000 was the most complete solution for our need,” said Angie Ogden, Asset Control Specialist at Wink. She continued, “Right now we’re using Track4000 and Inventory4000 to manage 7,300 assets. Within 6-8 weeks we expect to bump that number up to about 10,000.” Angie can now produce a report that lists every asset, and its replacement value, on every floor of every building. “Our main goal was to have a complete and accurate record of all assets, a goal I can confidently say we’ve attained,” said Angie. Wink went live with Track4000 and Inventory4000 in July 2006. Only six months later, in December 2006, they realized how accurate each office’s asset inventory was. “In one hour, I can run a report that says the first floor of building X has X amount of dollars worth of assets. If we'd had these systems in place before Katrina, we would have saved three months in our recovery process. It’s too bad that it took a real disaster for us to realize the value of a company like RAMI,” Angie explained. In addition to the aforementioned benefits, the company is now enjoying much lower insurance premiums. Every month they provide their insurance company with updated coverage values for each floor of every location.

“We can also track items by employee. For example, if a staff member leaves the company, their manager has a list of all items assigned to them, such as a cell phone or BlackBerry, even keys to the office or remote login access,” Angie concluded. “It's an added security feature.”

Wink is experiencing phenomenal expansion. Estimating 25% growth per year for the next three years, the asset base is obviously increasing as well. Next they will implement Lease4000, which provides complete control over finance and operating leases. Implementation of asset management software (Asset4000) and document management software (Document4000) will come further down the road. “We have the entire Series4000 suite at our fingertips. It’s just a matter of implementing the modules one-by-one,” Russell remarked.

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