Darrell Mervau, V.P. of Business Development at File Train Inc., will be a key presenter at the upcoming webinar on Save Big Money Tracking Small Assets with RFID.

Are there benefits of a robust records management system you find people often do not think of?

Mervau: Most customers never think of the importance of knowing what physical records exist and how important it is to have a database that is searchable for those records.

For example, if you are a legal department for a fortune 500 company, or a major university, you would think it would be important to be able to know what content you had created in a physical format and apply rules to this information. This is an area organizations don't think of till they are in litigation or are having problems with some other compliance area like SOX. (see SOX and RFID)

I know SOX has certain requirements that create good reason to know where one's inventory of goods is? What type of document requirements are part of SOX?

Mervau: There are many different requirements. These relate to SEC filings as well as having procedure in place for handling records. I am not a SOX expert; but I know it affects many of our clients.

For example, all of the sales agreements you have, and each version or addition of that agreement, must be produced in an audit to prove the validity of your performance and real sales numbers. So companies want to be able to access the physical record and all subsequent volumes during an audit. Electronic document systems will have the different versions saved; but the auditors will want to see the signature copy and then see any other related data.

Our Fortune 500 clients use our product for their SOX compliance. Again, knowing what exists and being able to put you hands on it and having rules applied to the records are all parts of the compliance issues.

I would think there are all sorts of professions and industries with their own rules on what you must keep for X amount of time, right?

Mervau: Each record type and specific industries have their rules. The different areas of our government dictate how long a company is required to retain their records. We all know the standard one, I think, we keep our tax files for seven years.

There are hundreds of records from accounting to HR to correspondence to agreements that all have regulations applied to them. The downfall of Enron was because they decided to destroy records they should have kept which not only made Enron collapse, but also one of the nations largest accounting firms Arthur Anderson. So if you are in a particular industry you have regulations then each state or county may have additional rules.

The Health care industries has additional security regulations called HIPPA; the BioPharma industry has specific requirements; the FDA has audit guidelines and so on.

Do many companies do "legacy tagging" too, tagging old files to take advantage of the implementation?

Mervau: The tagging of the legacy files helps give the fastest ROI to the customer. The system works best when tools make it easy for the customer to assign a tag to a file.

Are there any issues with tag placement? Must they be on the tabs or edges of files generally?

Mervau: With the Gen 2 tags, tag placement becomes less of an issue. We find the bigger issue is trying to make the customer program the tag to some value. This can cause problems for the customer and for the system in many cases.

I would imagine just the comfort of knowing, to a lawyer for example, that there are no last-minute scavenger hunts for files must be a big plus.

Mervau: There are a number of added value features to the system. To the attorneys that we work with the value changes over time.

It starts with the ease of use of the system and passive tracking. Then, within months, it is a customer service, added value for being able to locate all the clients’ files and know what exists again. We have had partners of firms tell us that at first they thought the system was best for locating files, but now it is helping with customer service and retention.

The other plus with the passive tracking is that it adds additional trust of the systems. Not having to hunt for a file proves the system is working.

Have doctors, medical offices or hospitals been starting to use RFID file tracking?

Mervau: Yes, we have seen some adoption of the technology in medical clinics and hospitals.

Join Darrell Mervau, who will be a key presenter at the upcoming webinar on Save Big Money Tracking Small Assets with RFID.