Established in 1918, and recognized for its advanced technology and innovative solutions, the Citizen Group offers major product lines — watches, machine tools, devices and components, and electronic products.
Citizen Systems, a subsidiary of the company was established in 1964 and has since become a leading manufacturer of the label, photographic, and POS printers as well as calculators and healthcare products. The division now caters to diverse markets including logistics, retail, manufacturing, hospitality, and healthcare across the entire EMEA region.
Identifying the challenge
This broad scale of operations requires agile asset management, complete visibility into asset movements, and efficient team collaboration. The technical team at Citizen Systems identified that manual asset tracking such as the use of spreadsheets was holding them back and could lead to potential equipment loss and poor employee collaboration, given their widespread workflows.
They took a proactive approach to automate asset management before the impact could reach end-users. After an exhaustive search for automated equipment tracking systems, the team decided that EZOfficeInventory was best suited to their workflows.
Unlocking real-time asset data with automated asset management
Citizen Systems’ switch to EZOfficeInventory has been pivotal to their management success. They have deftly avoided challenges of manual asset tracking and enhanced key workflows. Here’s how EZOfficeInventory helped them achieve their desired management outcomes.
Complete visibility across various locations
As part of its daily operations, the company dispatches hundreds of printing demo kits to more than 70 locations in the EMEA region. These locations include resellers, client-specified sites, trade shows, technology conferences, and Citizen Systems’ own offices and storage. With spreadsheets, the technical team at Citizen Systems risked the loss of its high-value demo kits.
EZOfficeInventory has enabled them to log details of equipment throughout EMEA with its Locations module. A trail of check-outs and check-ins across all the predefined locations provides complete visibility into the status and whereabouts of every demo kit.
Citizen Systems also uses Custom Fields to specify an ‘Owner’ at the time of checkout. This has helped establish greater accountability and has reduced instances of misplacement. As one of the technical team members put it:
“I’m confident that we’re not going to lose any demo equipment now!”
Fast and accurate scheduling of demo kits
Citizen Systems regularly attends exhibitions and customer events and arranges training sessions for potential B2B clients requiring demo equipment. With manual processes, they risked conflicted bookings of demo kits and disrupted events.
EZOfficeInventory enables them to organize their schedule. Now, their marketing team just needs to scan an interactive dashboard calendar and search for demo kits available during a specified period.
Then, they add the available kits and printing accessories to a Cart and reserve it for the date of the event. Timely reservation reduces the risk of delays and ensures that Citizen Systems meets its event needs every time.
Effective team collaboration
While the marketing team at Citizen Systems is responsible for organizing training and conferences, the technical team undertakes demos and presentations.
Their move to EZOfficeInventory has significantly improved collaboration between the two key teams. Whenever the marketing department reserves a kit for a technician, the designated technical staff is notified of the items assigned for a specific event.
Since the system sends automated alerts only to concerned team members, there’s no risk of miscommunication. The alerts also provide a trail of custodianship and help quickly track down a kit, making it impossible for it to go missing.
“The visibility and operations are now much easier.”
Known for its innovative solutions, Citizen Systems has also exhibited agility in its internal business processes. It has leveraged automated asset management offered by EZOfficeInventory to streamline its daily operations and eliminate any inefficiencies. In dynamic business environments where corporations face multiple challenges at a time, Citizen Systems is a pioneering example.
