Kilmarnock College Asset Management Case Study

Background

Kilmarnock College is a Further Education College based in Ayrshire, Scotland. The College has approximately 6,000 students aged 16 plus over three campuses and also caters for evening classes.

David Swan the MIS/ ICT Manager explains why they recognised the need for a specialist asset management solution.

Challenges

Over the past few years the Finance and ICT departments of the College had been using a combination of a computerised Asset Recording solution, spreadsheets and Net Intelligence to manage their assets.

As is the case with many educational establishments, the ICT department were tasked with managing all IT assets and the Finance department looking after all other resources. With over 800 PCs and a total of 10,500 asset and inventory items David wanted to find one solution to manage all.

A full asset and inventory verification programme had not been undertaken for a few years and this was now required to be completed in a relatively short timeframe. David knew they faced a huge task and in addition Software license management also needed to be addressed. Despite having a comprehensive record of installed software, it was difficult to tally these individually with the licenses and realise over and under licensing.

Solution

David was attending a seminar at Microsoft Edinburgh, hosted by leading software supplier SBL. Part of the day was a presentation of Parago, the leading asset management system to over 1,000 schools and colleges in England.

"I liked the look of it" said David. "It was the first system I had seen that managed all assets in one solution, and its user friendly interface looked like it could be used by all members of staff. The presenter said the company were keen to have their first Scottish College using the system so I pointed out that their pricing model needed to be amended to accommodate our education infrastructure. Many of our Colleges have less than 1,000 PCs which is smaller than most of our English counterparts." The presenter assured David they could include another pricing level for Scottish market and he took the details back to his Colleagues.

David added "The decision process was made a lot easier by the online videos with voiceover that guide you through each part of the system. Members of our Senior Management Team attended the on-line demonstration and liked the look of the system and the flexibility of reporting and tracking. Later, an online presentation by a member of the Parago support team confirmed this was exactly what we were looking for."

Benefit

When listing the main benefits that Parago has already brought the College David sights the biggest one as the huge cost savings. “Parago enabled us to stop using our two previous systems" said David. "We can now carry out audits and regular sample checks easily as the PC Discovery and SAM System updates automatically and Parago Mobile audit mode makes tracking all other assets extremely efficient. It is so easy to navigate around the system as it enables you to create a plan of our 3 College campuses.

David continued "The reports produced for Managers will make a huge difference. It is not just the knowledge of what is there, but also the ability to plan what is needed in the future"

"Another major benefit of the solution relates to Business Continuity" added David. "With all our asset and inventory data being stored at a major UK hosting centre the College can provide the relevant information to Insurers in the event of a major incident such as a fire."

The Future

David summarised by saying "I presented Parago to our Audit Committee at the end of March 2010. It was received very well and I believe that the Parago solution is a fantastic way for managing and tracking all College assets"