Government Technology - August 2008 - (Page 42)

records management S TAT E | L O C A L | F E D E R A L Synopsis: RFID helps state attorney’s office quickly locate case files. Agency: Florida State Attorney’s Office. Technology: RFID and case tracking software. Florida State Attorney’s Office uses RFID to track case files. n the Florida Office of the State Attorney’s 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County, an attorney needs to find a file that’s pertinent to a case she’ll be prosecuting in court later that day. It can’t be found in any of the likely places, and the attorney needs it immediately. A year ago, that need would have precipitated bedlam in the office. “What was happening is that when a file was not easily found, panic would ensue,” said Dan Zinn, CIO of the 15th Judicial Circuit. “E-mails would go out; it would be broadcast to the entire building; and everyone would drop what they were doing to help people find a single file.” The file might be handled by a different division, in transit through the mailroom or be sitting in any office in the three-floor building. Today, after the addition of a new radio frequency identification (RFID) capability to the office’s proprietary case-tracking system, an attorney can open a computer application, enter the case number, press Ctrl-I and see the location of the file on a building floor plan. The process saves time, money and prosecutions. BY K AY T S U K E L | C O N T R I B U T I N G W R I T E R Contact: Barry E. Krischer, state attorney, Florida, StateAttorney@sa15. state.fl.us. I OnTrack still falling through the cracks. “Misplacing a file would happen many times during any given week,” said Zinn. “And it was costing us a lot in lost time, as well as potentially putting cases in jeopardy because we were unable to get those case files to court in a timely manner.” With this business need in mind, Krischer and Zinn, as early as 2003, started discussing potential solutions to help track files. The Need for Tracking The 15th Judicial Circuit employs approximately 100 attorneys and 200 support staff members who process tens of thousands of case files annually. “We review roughly 16,000 to 20,000 cases at the intake level,” said Barry E. Krischer, state attorney. “We file 70 percent of what walks in the door. That’s around 14,000 felonies and 70,000 misdemeanors this fiscal year alone.” Although the office had set up workflows to handle the vast number of files, some were Choosing RFID Many industries have handled asset tracking with bar-code solutions. However, both Krischer and Zinn knew that it was unfeasible. The added step of scanning bar codes each time a file was opened or closed would put too much burden on office staff. “I’ve been working in this office, with the mindset of this office, for 26 years,” Krischer said. “I know what they are willing to do and what they are not. And with the sheer volume AUG_08 of cases, you can’t ask for that extra step. It’s just not going to happen.” Zinn agreed: “Trying to use bar coding is labor intensive. You have to scan the files continually, and given our workload, it was likely that any files we were looking for would be missing because they weren’t scanned when they were supposed to be. So we’d still have that panicked file search problem.” Zinn paid careful attention when RFID started making headlines in early 2004. “We had started reading about some of the things that Wal-Mart was doing with RFID and started to explore the concept,” he said. Zinn contacted RFID system provider PanGo about implementing RFID at the office. “They had a technology that would work,” he said. “But it wasn’t really cost effective at that time.” With Wal-Mart’s continued push for RFID, the technology evolved quickly — as did lower prices. In 2007, InnerWireless, the company that acquired PanGo, gave Zinn a 42 http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - August 2008

Government Technology - August 2008 Contents Point of View The Last Mile Big Picture On the Scene Four Questions for... Net Gains A Government Technology® Industry Profile: CA CA Contents IT Network Management: State and Local Governments Face New Challenges MyFloridaNet Arkansas Department of Information Systems Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Government Tightens Its Belt Rocking the Vote High-Speed Portal Project On Track Wi-Fi on a Shoestring From Paintball to Video Virtually Vulnerable How It Works Products signal:noise

Government Technology - August 2008

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