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Digital Transformation at PHBern: A Success Story

PHBern is one of the largest educational institutions in Switzerland. With Timly, the university has transformed its asset tracking and inventory management, significantly improving workflows and operations.

Pädagogische Hochschule Bern

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Founded

2005



Employees

~1,200

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Sector

Education

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Stock Control

~20,000 items

The Challenge: Streamlining Stocktaking and Organizing Key Management

The main building of PHBern at the vonRoll Areal in Bern

PHBern, though a relatively new university founded in 2005, has a vast amount of inventory to manage. Just the sheer volume of furniture alone required at least three weeks for the annual stock control process.

It wasn’t just the yearly count of furniture that took up a lot of time. Keeping track of the large number of keys for all the different buildings and rooms at the university also required at least two weeks every year, just to account for where keys were and who had them. In total, the annual stocktake would take at least a month of work.

This huge time commitment drained university resources, making the annual process a recurring challenge for PHBern. The university was already on a path towards digitalization, so the need to digitize its key management became increasingly urgent. These factors combined led the university to look for a new and better solution. They wanted a flexible and easy-to-use tool to manage and control both furniture and keys – and that’s how they found Timly.

The Solution: Digital Asset Management to the Rescue

PHBern found Timly to be an innovative software that provides a comprehensive platform for managing keys and other resources in a way that made the most sense for the institution. Digitizing the key management process, including check-ins and check-outs, made a huge difference for the university by vastly simplifying several processes. With Timly, PHBern can track all key activities in real-time, making it easy to keep an overview of where each key is and when it’s supposed to be returned. This is achieved through an intuitive user interface and a mobile app that allows staff to manage key access remotely.

Timly’s intuitive inventory management software also allows PHBern to efficiently manage and monitor all their furniture. Each piece of furniture is recorded with its location, condition, usage history, and other necessary information, enabling transparent asset control and timely maintenance planning. Also, assigning furniture to buildings, rooms, or individuals has greatly simplified asset management and improved overall operational efficiency. This way, PHBern was able to significantly reduce the administrative workload and better utilize its resources.

The integration of Timly into PHBern’s existing IT infrastructure was seamless, as the inventory software is compatible with all common business systems and is very easy to use. Thanks to comprehensive onboarding and premium support from Timly, PHBern’s staff quickly adopted the new solution and are now making excellent use of it in their daily tasks and workflows.

Organizing and tracking their assets is a top priority for PHBern

Most used functions:

Mobile Access Anywhere

Mobile access is crucial for PHBern, allowing staff to have all important information at their fingertips at all times.

Assigning Inventory

Inventory is allocated and connected to PHBern staff. The check-in/check-out feature ensures everything is historically traceable.

Result: Time Savings Meet Efficiency

Thanks to the implementation of Timly, PHBern was able to significantly improve its key and inventory management. Transparency and traceability were greatly enhanced, and the automated processes led to a substantial reduction in workload related to the annual stocktaking.

Having many rooms means managing many assets

Real-time tracking and the flexibility to manage inventory have greatly boosted security and efficiency within the institution. Automated notifications allow PHBern to address potential issues immediately. Also, digitizing previously manual processes has noticeably improved daily operations, making them clearer and less error-prone.

Moreover, the improved key and inventory management enabled better resource planning and deployment. With Timly, PHBern now has in place a digital, secure, and effective inventory management system that is sustainable and that helps future-proof their operations.

In this context, Susanne Howald, Head of Operational Services, emphasizes the importance of choosing business tools that are supported by responsive software developers: “We get to help develop something that makes the future more sustainable.”

At Timly, we are delighted to have long-term supporters like PHBern who are helping us make the world of asset tracking and inventory management more simple, sustainable, and smart.

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