Change is constant and unavoidable. We don't know when or where or how it will impact us, so we try to stay agile - technologically, organizationally and mentally - to anticipate the emerging technologies and shifting paradigms that will likely disrupt the status quo. It's a lot to think about and sometimes it's enough to [...]
Property managers recognize that today's asset tracking best practices demand Auto Identification Technology (AIT) such as printed barcodes or RFID tags. For military asset tracking, the barcode standard is IUID (Item Unique Identification) as defined by MIL-STD-130N, although the optimal asset tracking solution will handle other types of asset tags, as well as those needed [...]
It’s hard to believe A2B has been focused on IUID for ten years. Although the adoption of IUID by the Department of Defense didn’t really become official until January of 2004, a lot of time and effort went into formulating the final policy and making sure the department could hit the ground running on that [...]
The FIAR (Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness) Directorate came out of the DoD Comptroller’s office under former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Secretary Hagel has endorsed the plan stating that he will “ensure we make that deadline of 2017 on all audits,” the ultimate goal of the Directorate. The FIAR Guidance (March 2013) in support [...]
Federal government spending and managing of budgets is foremost in the minds of civil servants and contractors alike. One thing is certain - a massive amount of money is spent every day. Just look at the national debt clock in Times Square. (There is actually a website dedicated to it. Prepare yourself. It'll make your [...]
We thought it would be fun to offer some thoughts on common IUID SNAFUS we have encountered. This is not to be cynical; many organizations have gotten it right and are reaping the benefits. Instead it is presented as a cautionary for those who ignore business rules and best practices and go on to bake a [...]
I'd like to explain why Wi-Fi is very similar to IUID, the ISO supported standard for global asset identification and machine-readable encoding used by the US military. To coin a pun, if you use a laptop, you'll be able to track me nicely on this one. In fact, you might be reading this blog from [...]
The brave men and women who serve our country in the face of danger know the true meaning of the term “readiness.” In laymen terms readiness is knowledge of what you have, where it is, and whether it is ready for use. For most of us that means the chain saw is in the garage [...]
The recent Leadership Summit hosted by AIM NA (Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility) in Chicago had good international representation, with representatives attending from China, Russia and other nations. Summit award winners are listed here: http://www.aimglobal.org/members/news/templates/template.aspx?articleid=4078&zoneid=1. I liked the expanded thinking of keynote speaker Tom Miller of The Sage Group who made historical reference to [...]
There is big news for property managers coming out of Washington, in the form of a DFARS final ruling. Effective immediately, all serialized GFP, regardless of acquisition value, must be reported. This is not surprising, as it eliminates ambiguity, the purpose of IUID in the first place. The ruling provides further proof of DoD's intent [...]