U.S. Micro Corp. First in Industry to Implement Real-Time Tracking Solution for End of Life IT Asset Recovery

U.S. Micro raises critical IT asset security to a new level by tracking assets in real time from pickup through disposition, using custom proprietary wireless mobile solution

ATLANTA, May 31 2005 (PRNewswire) – U.S. Micro Corporation announced today that it has become the first corporate IT asset management company to implement a real-time tracking system that monitors retired IT assets from the  point of on-site pickup, through shipping and final disposition - using a custom proprietary wireless mobile solution that went live this month.

U.S. Micro purchases and securely removes hundreds of thousands of IT assets (PCs and peripherals, notebooks, networking and telephony hardware, etc.) annually from major corporate end-users and leasing companies, refurbishes and remarkets them. The security of these assets - many of which may contain sensitive corporate data - during the removal and shipping process is paramount. Its first-in-the-industry mobile asset tracking system, entitled Enertia, enables U.S. Micro to maintain its position as the industry leader in
providing the highest levels of physical and data security.

“Because of the way most asset management companies operate, assets are not tracked through one system from pickup through disposition,” said Jim Kegley, U.S. Micro Corporation president. “Asset managers hire third-party trucking companies, and their tracking mechanisms are not synched with each other, let alone with the corporation from which they’re removing the assets. This low-security approach presents the dangerous possibility of assets being lost or stolen in transit or from weigh-station warehouses - and critical corporate data being released into the marketplace.”

U.S. Micro has long captured individual asset tracking data on-site at pickups and locked that data into its proprietary field technicians’ laptops, to be transmitted back to the U.S. Micro Command Center, its 24-7 command-and-control unit in Atlanta. The Command Center would then share the data with the corporation from which the assets were being removed. 

U.S. Micro’s Enertia software solution takes IT asset security during the critical removal and shipping phase to a new, highly secure level. The company’s field technicians are equipped with handheld PCs using CDMA technology, Bluetooth barcode scanners, and InfraRed barcode label printers. When the technicians arrive on-site for a pickup, they scan the asset tags of each piece of equipment they are removing. For any equipment without an asset tag, they simply generate a barcode label on the spot.

All tracking data, along with a digitized signature, is sent over a secure channel in real time to both U.S. Micro’s Command Center and the project database of the corporation from which the equipment is being removed. The data is reconciled immediately against the equipment list slated for pickup to ensure 100 percent accuracy. Enertia also ensures that U.S. Micro maintains absolute asset ID custody throughout the process, from pickup through shipping to final disposition of the assets.

“Our customers highly value our industry-leading physical and data security procedures,” added Steve Bowen, vice president of Operations/Sales. “We take our security responsibility extremely seriously and are always looking for ways to improve asset security. Enertia is now providing the highest possible level of security that technology can offer. And our large corporate customers are extremely pleased with the peace of mind and the initial results from the system’s implementation.”

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