Mukwonago Fire Department – a simple, affordable solution for answering EMS inventory questions

The Mukwonago Fire Department serves approximately 16,000 people in southeastern Wisconsin, US, with two stations responding to an average of 1,800 calls a year. And it was facing a challenge all too familiar to public safety agencies.

Providing access to critical items used by its emergency medical services (EMS) teams while maintaining visibility into who’s using what, where and when.

According to Lieutenant Matt Sura, the department had previously kept supplies in a storeroom with a push-button door lock. This provided basic security, but no control over what or how many items any person could take. Roughly 50 people had access, and once someone entered the room there was no way of knowing who took what. If the door was propped open or wasn’t closed all the way, the security was gone.

The problem became clear when supervisors realised that some items were simply ‘disappearing’.