From Excel Spreadsheet to Seamless Tracking

Before the Offenbach Regional Association switched to ecos systems, reception staff had to manage the keys to emergency response vehicles manually using Excel spreadsheets and paper lists. Tracking who had taken which vehicle and when, and when it had been returned, was only possible with considerable effort — and vehicles were not always reliably available where they were needed for a call-out.

At the same time, narcotics had to be documented using traditional narcotics logbooks — a manual process that had to be meticulously maintained by hand for every withdrawal and every stock check in order to meet the statutory record-keeping requirements for narcotics.

For several years, the Offenbach Regional Association has relied on ecos key cabinets and intelligent lockers, distributed across four cabinets in different buildings. For the vehicle keys, both cabinets with locked slots and a cabinet with unlocked slots are used: a key taken from one station can be returned at a different station — exactly as the real-world workflow between locations requires.

Key withdrawal itself is linked to the driver's license: each driver's license is fitted with an RFID chip and must be held up to the reader to open the cabinet. This ensures that a vehicle key can only be taken by someone who actually holds a valid driver's license.

For narcotics, the regional association relies on an ecos intelligent locker with four weight-monitored drawers. Each compartment is calibrated to a specific weight; the integrated scale automatically detects how many narcotics remain in the compartment, and the locker continuously tracks the stock. As soon as a compartment is empty, the system automatically triggers a reorder alert. Access to the locker is additionally secured via two-factor authentication.

With the ecos cabinets, the Offenbach Regional Association has fully digitized vehicle and building key management.

For narcotics as well, the regional association now relies entirely on the automatic log of the ecos smart locker instead of the narcotics logbooks used previously. The rollout of the ecos system went smoothly, and its ease of use is especially valued in daily operations.