Case Study

Case Study: Locating Case Files

CLIENT PROFILE AND ISSUE

One of the oldest and most respected law firms in Ohio wanted to find a better way of tracking their case files. With tens of thousands of client files being tracked manually, employees spent an increasing amount of time trying to find misplaced files. This extra time not only added up in labor costs, but also cut into the case managers’ ability to serve customers.

DISCOVERY PROCESS

The law firm came to CDO for help in developing the best solution for their issues. CDO worked with the law firm to learn their workflow, determine the best way to track their critical assets, and set up the solution based on their specific processes. CDO discovered that the main cause of the law firm’s tracking issues was not having a reliable last known location of the file. Multiple attorneys work with the same case file and case files frequently move from one attorney’s office to another. File location tracking was done manually for decades. The case managers had difficulty tracking and keeping the file locations up to date. They would look up the file number in their legacy system to determine who had it last, only to find that it was no longer in that location. 

SOLUTION

CDO recommended a combination of Barcodes and RFID to section off the files and allow the case managers to quickly and easily find any and all files. The law firm divided the building into sections and uses CDO’s Critical Asset Tracking Solutions (CATS) to inventory each section every week, which captures the last known location for each case file or critical document. The CATS software provides a history for each case file including when it was created and a time stamp for each location the file visited.

RESULTS

Using CATS has significantly reduced the case managers’ search time for their critical assets. When trying to locate a file, the case manager simply calls up the file in the CATS software, checks the location history for the last known location, and then uses the Geiger counter feature on their handheld RFID scanner to search that area. They now have quick and easy visibility to any file in their office, whether it is a case file, a minute book, or another important document.

If you have questions or would like to further discuss your unique asset tracking challenges, please schedule an appointment.