Electric Company Makes Camcode Bar Code Technology Their Standard

Millions of people rely on this energy company to supply the power needed to keep their homes and businesses running each day. That’s why they rely on Camcode to provide bar code asset tags that deliver fast, accurate data on thousands of assets throughout their plants.

In 2003, the company began the process of implementing a new asset management system for the steam/electric generation plants that supply power and steam to a major U.S. city’s service territory. The scope of the project was immense – four plants, with more than 64,500 assets managed in these facilities, including valves, pumps, motors and heat exchanges.

“These tags were selected based on their ability to withstand the tough conditions inside the plant.”

The team encountered many of the challenges common in manual data collection systems – incomplete asset tracking, inconsistent naming conventions and other errors inevitably introduced by manual data entry.

“We needed to re-identify everything in the plant,” says a senior project manager for the company’s Steam and Electric Business Unit Maximo and Asset Optimization Implementation Project.

That’s when he and his team turned to Camcode. They knew that converting from manual to bar code data collection would allow them to more accurately and efficiently track plant maintenance records, including correction and prevention and operational hold-offs. But the company also needed a bar code solution durable enough to stand up to the harsh conditions found in its plants, and one packaged for easy assembly and integration into its Maximo system.

“There was no doubt about choosing Camcode.”

That’s exactly what they found in Camcode’s Bar Code Asset Tags. “These tags were selected based on their ability to withstand the tough conditions inside the plant, namely intense heat, corrosiveness and dampness,” says the project manager.

Camcode’s Bar Code Asset Tags have helped the company to ensure accurate and consistent data collection on assets throughout their plants, to track per-unit maintenance costs and to improve overall efficiency and productivity. When it comes to bar code systems available for the utility industry, he says the choice is clear.

“There was no doubt about choosing Camcode,” says the project manager. “Their durability testing was so rigorous that we even rewrote our own internal code to reflect their specifications.”