Project spotlight: Freeing up space at Banner Life Insurance Company
If you could use your space to help generate revenue instead of storing files, would you? Of course you would. It’s often a space shortage that forces companies to take a hard look at how they store files—and most of them can realize significant efficiencies and free up square footage by rethinking that storage.
Banner Life Insurance Company, a top-tier insurance company that was growing rapidly, was in such a position. They needed to create significantly more space for staff growth.
In this post, we outline how TAB helped Banner Life to quickly free up space by purging and consolidating files.
The situation
Banner Life had over 500,000 policy files on site in three different mobile systems and stacking shelving. They knew that reducing the number of files on site and consolidating the rest into one room would allow them to create more space for staff growth.
The plan
While consulting with their TAB consultant, Banner Life realized their imaging policy would help them eliminate the need for a physical file room in five years time.
Since the inception of their imaging program, they hadn’t needed to create any new paper files. It was decided that all expired policy files would be archived while the remaining files would be consolidated and placed in storage units in sequential order.
The linchpin of the purge / consolidation plan was records management software, which was used to create barcodes for each of 122,000 termed files. The program ensured that every file was accessible during and after the move.
The execution
To be completed on time and on budget, a project of this scale needed to be executed with precision. The process went like this:
- The database of expired files was sampled for accuracy and the data was uploaded into their records management software.
- All 122,000 files were audited and a barcode was attached to each one.
- Each file was scanned into boxes, using the off-site storage vendor’s barcode identifier.
- Weekly reports of those boxes were created for Banner Life and the off-site storage vendor, so everyone knew where every file was at all times.
- When the off-site vendor came to pick up the 50 to 100 boxes being sent out every day, they used the records management software data to populate their own inventory program.
- Remaining files were consolidated in sequential order into the newly configured file room.
Creating a new file room
The TAB team designed a new file room, using as many of the existing storage units as possible. Two file rooms were merged into one room that could accommodate two existing mobile systems, as well as a new one created with existing static shelving.
The results
By purging and consolidating their entire collection, Banner Life not only freed up square footage at a time when their growth required it, they made their information retrieval system much more efficient.
