By John Shamley, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office
As each of us who manage property and evidence warehouses for our respective law enforcement agencies, we come under the constant pressure for budget management, increases in validation of our internal chain of custody and security as well as intensifying our internal and external customer service.
These internal and external pushes and pulls require all of us in the field of law enforcement property management to look to our counterparts in the private sector to help us meet the goals of the agency, the courts and the public.
When I was hired to work in the property and evidence warehouse of the Maricopa County Sheriffs’ Office, I found the property division was actively using QueTel‘s, Evidence TraQ, an evidence warehouse management software program (WMS), allowing the staff to constantly track impounded items. Our office had recently authorized the audit of our warehouse by the county audit department. Our division fared well, but a major concern of the auditors was the lack of a complete inventory of our warehouse.
Knowing this inventory was going to be a major undertaking with over 400,000 items and five to six hundred pieces coming into the warehouse weekly along with property being released every day to officers and owners. The staff stepped up and in six months with the business open, we were able to complete the inventory with no items unaccounted for. The cost of this inventory was six months of working every day of the week and nearly 3000 hours of overtime.
During the inventory, I realized that if we were to conduct these inventories every year with a staff of 15, we need a more efficient method of conducting an inventory, while still continuing our customer service both internally and externally as well as lowering the cost of the inventory process. I decided to start the private sector method of cycle counting the warehouse weeks after closing out the first inventory.
Cycle counting is a method to inventory your warehouse as you touch items. When you pull an item or put away an item the location is inventoried and a sticker is place on the location indicating the location has been inventoried and the serial number of the person who inventoried the location is written on the brightly colored sticker. These types of stickers are easily visible from the floor. Rarely, with some 50,000 locations, will the staff touch the same location in a given year so inventorying the same location rarely occurs.
Items that are received from the deputy at the intake counter are placed in tubs bins and are inventoried when they are full and prior to be placed in a bin location in the warehouse. The inventorying of the bins is randomly done by staff that has time. If there is a discrepancy, it is found within hours or days rather than weeks or months. This inventory method would be very difficult without the software in the hand held devices that are linked to the Evidence TraQ WMS system.
I assigned a member of the team to handle the discrepancies when the system and the bin did not match. This team member has a strong background in the WMS we use and understands where to look in the warehouse and system if a discrepancy occurs. This person saves the day on a regular basis.
The highest risk areas drugs, guns and money are inventoried continually. This task is given to a two members of the staff to complete. After those areas are inventoried the task is given to another two members of the staff and the inventories of these three areas are done again. The rotation of the inventory reduces the opportunity of errors and limits the risk of theft. With the WMS handheld devises these inventories can be done several times a year.
This simple method of cycle counting allows for a large portion of the items to be inventoried before the concentrated effort to complete a full inventory is done. This reduces our time on the inventory from 6 month to 2 months. It results in a happier more productive staff and executive management appreciates the reduction in cost to a mandated function.
About QueTel:
QueTel‘s software saves time and increases accountability for law enforcement agencies. The TraQ Suite family of applications encompasses evidence management, digital evidence management (including redacation), forensic laboratory management (LIMS), and quartermaster inventory. For 25 years, we have served agencies with implementation services, consulting, and, recently, BWC video redaction services.