In this guide:
"High quality and well maintained equipment can mean life or death for our team and the wildlife we protect. Therefore, we couldn’t make any compromise when it came to a proper inventory procedure - itemit was the best solution on market"
"High quality and well maintained equipment can mean life or death for our team and the wildlife we protect. Therefore, we couldn’t make any compromise when it came to a proper inventory procedure - itemit was the best solution on market"
Through itemit’s growth we have reached far and wide with our expansion into multiple industries with an array of use cases for our asset tracking software, but I bet you never would have imagined itemit could help protect an endangered animal?
Asset tracking software is used by many organisations all over the world from those in construction to those in production, IT and beyond. Now, itemit is adding another great cause to its list: wildlife conservation. This case study tells all on how itemit has become a important element to helping save endangered rhinos from illegal poaching, all the way over in South Africa.
Who Are Rhino Force?
The story begins right back in 2017 when Hemmersbach, the IT servicing company, asked themselves ‘Why are we doing only this?’ as their business boomed. And it was then, Rhino Force was born. Rhino Force are a direct action, conservation organisation who protect one of the most endangered species on earth: rhinoceroses. Rhino Force aid in anti-poaching, rhino gene preservation and the elimination of other illegal activities in the bush. Rhino Force’s work is critically protecting the Greater Kruger which comprises Western border of the Kruger National Park which reported a 75% rapid decline in the population of white rhinos and a 51% decline of black rhinos within the last 10 years.
Action needed to be taken and fast. Rhino Force truly strives to help save the African Rhino from extinction, and have teams of incredibly skilled rangers who are fully equipped to tackle the daily challenges faced through poaching activity. They also work with their local community through an initiative called ‘anti-poaching through anti-poverty’ which provides support to local people enabling them to become educated and employed, leaving them without reason to resort to poaching.
The Challenge
So you may be wondering just why Rhino Force need itemit? Every action the Rhino Force team makes centres around being reactive. Being reactive saves rhinos, and to do so the team needs to be able to access their equipment quickly. Meanwhile, the team also need to know that their equipment is well maintained. They have a large inventory of conservation equipment including: military-grade night vision, camera traps and radios to name a few.
Rhino Force didn’t want to rely on the use of a spreadsheet as they can be timely to use and cause gaps in data. Which is why their conservation equipment is tracked with itemit’s asset tracking software.
Due to the scale of their inventory, equipment users and the fact their duties cover a large open area it added increased risk of lost assets, missed equipment maintenance, loss of accountability and wastage. This in turn could impact the response time for rangers to attend an unwelcome situation and therefore reduces the success rate of a rhino’s survival. The risk of the correct equipment not being accessible when required, could also land the rangers in a dangerous situation, and therefore the need to resolve these challenges became clear.
Much of the conservation equipment is specialist and needs regular maintenance/ servicing, not being able to keep a track of these details will have a dire impact on the daily operations. It is imperative that the equipment is fit for purpose. Rhino Force expressed how if a piece of equipment were to break and due to the remoteness of their operation it can take an extensive amount of time to receive a replacement, time being something they did not have.
It was also apparent if regular maintenance were not tracked, repairs could become costly from prolonged damage. There was once more a need to save time and money. While a further issue: a lack of accountability of equipment that is constantly changing hands, would also cause gaps in damage control therefore resulting in fit for purpose equipment not being readily available and once more negativity impacting the success of conservation.
Saving time, money and resources became clear goals for Rhino Force. So it was now down to itemit to provide a solution.
