The Rivermine Inventory Engine delivers a sophisticated approach to tracking and managing your telecom assets. The Inventory Engine creates and maintains a dynamic central repository of all wireless, voice and data networking assets across your enterprise: circuits, services, cell phones, PDAs, routers, switches, locations, and users are among the many telecom assets tracked by the Rivermine Inventory Engine. This multi-vendor solution captures everything related to these assets—including maintenance contracts, associated users, financial and technical attributes—and maps relationships to one another.
This centralized inventory can be automatically kept current and accurate by Rivermine’s integrated Service Order Manager application, which updates the inventory when changes and additions are made. A well maintained, centralized, accurate telecom inventory is critical to optimize bill validation and network design and enhancement. In addition, telecom inventory management works in conjunction with other corporate asset management systems.
The Rivermine Telecom Inventory Engine comprises four key components: Rivermine’s Telecom Inventory Management Engine captures and presents the big picture, so you can make sound business decisions to optimize telecom network capacity and operations.
Rivermine Telecom Library
Take a look at the Rivermine Telecom Library and you’ll immediately see what sets Rivermine apart from the pack. Only a company with decades of experience in the telecom business can understand how to capture and structure data within this unique and highly complex environment. The result of this depth and breadth of experience is the Rivermine Telecom Library—the heart and soul of our Telecom Inventory Management solution.
Our Inventory Engine is grounded in this powerful, proprietary data structure that precisely captures and organizes the detailed nuances of every type of circuit, device, and service. The Telecom Library maintains all asset details, including history, engineering elements, location information, user information, billing history, and associated equipment (wireline hardware and wireless devices). The data structure is flexible and thus accommodates services not yet invented. The unique Telecom Library maps all elements of your telecom network—clearly defining and tracking the complex, hierarchical interrelationships among equipment, devices, circuits, providers, and services. With this valuable Telecom Library, you can more easily conduct:
- Network management. Since the telecom network is not static and circuits are often connected to one another, the Telecom Library maps relationships among all circuits—which is critical for network management purposes.
- Engineering design. Each circuit can be decomposed to the most detailed engineering elements required to make network design decisions.
- Financial management. Detailed financial information is tracked for each circuit, piece of equipment, and user—including contract details, quoted price, recurring and non-recurring charges, and actual billing history.
Rivermine Asset Database
The Rivermine Asset Database is established and framed by the information contained by the Telecom Library. This specialized database is fed by Rivermine’s Service Order Manager application and trouble ticketing functionality. It automatically captures all user requests, service moves, adds, changes, disconnects, and trouble tickets as they occur—including all voice, data, wireless, calling cards, PDAs, and even home Internet connections
The Asset Database is an enterprise database capable of supporting multiple, simultaneous users, as well as managing complex transactions with other software systems. The Asset Database is centralized and reflects the dynamic nature of telecom assets rather than the static nature of physical asset management. This includes all technical and billing aspects of each circuit. It also contains the level of detail required to manage the network.
Your Telecom Asset Database remains highly accurate since all MACD activity and trouble tickets are now automatically flowing directly into your inventory. The result: The integrity of both your telecom inventory management and telecom expense management activities actually improves over time
Inventory Analysis
Ultimately, all functions of telecommunications management can be dramatically enhanced if they are based on a controlled, structured inventory of assets, services, and users. Without an accurate inventory, even invoice auditing for the simplest enterprise will become less effective over time, as inventory of assets and services become less accurate. With our telecom inventory management solution, you can ensure that the inventory in your system agrees with your actual physical inventory and those inventory items reflected on your bills. It is common to identify circuits that you did not know you owned or thought you disconnected.
By maintaining a central repository for all inventory data—in near real time, Rivermine Inventory Engine makes it possible to deliver the optimal network for your business at the optimal price. Simply put, if the asset database is both current and accurate, functions like financial management and network optimization are no longer a monumental task—nor one that relies heavily on guesswork.
The Rivermine Inventory Engine gives you comprehensive tools for inventory viewing, manipulation, and optimization. As a result, you can:
- Track and manage telecom spending and ensure accurate bill payment
- Drive accurate invoice audit and expense allocation
- Optimize network configurations: voice and data circuits, plus telecom hardware
- Negotiate more effectively with service providers and equipment vendors.
- Better manage contract compliance and enforce SLAs
Inventory Reporting
You can use information collected by our telecom inventory management solution to report on virtually every aspect of your inventory—which can lead to significant expense reduction and enhanced operational efficiencies. Here are just a few of the reports you can use to better manage your telecom inventory:
- Inventory by Location, Service Provider, Type
- Number of Services/Circuits of Each Type
- Circuits up for Contract Renewal
- Inventory by Individual
Figure 1: Inventory Manager Dashboard
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