CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Oregon State University is using a new tracking system for specialized items for students, faculty and visitors with disabilities and special needs.

OSU's Disability Access Services is using the AeroScout Real-Time Location System and Asset Tracking & Management solution to instantly track the location of items in order to reduce costs through improved inventory utilization while ensuring that the campus is accessible and comfortable for everyone.

OSU implemented the new system to track the location of hundreds of assets - primarily specialized furniture - tables, podiums and chairs - dispersed across the campus. The system, which works with OSU's standard Wi-Fi network, allows the Disability Access Service team to immediately locate needed items across the 1,800-acre Corvallis campus, which includes 40 buildings and more than 450 classrooms, and reposition the items where they're needed.

"We have a lot of returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan and we needed to find a cost-effective way to accommodate them with specialized furniture," said Jennifer Gosset of Disability Access Services. "Before deploying the AeroScout solution, there were times when 75 percent of (our) assets were unaccounted for. This impacted the campus experience for many of our students and staff members and drove up costs.

"Now we know exactly where every item is," she added. "As a result, we're able to provide a much better experience for our students with disabilities and we've significantly improved asset utilization and staff productivity."

The new system includes tags that are attached to the specialized furniture. The tags send location information of each item over OSU's Wi-Fi network to MobileView, which has a graphical map of the campus that shows the location of each item. 

Source: 

Jennifer Gossett, 541-737-4454

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