Solutions at Work: Reliant Energy Wholesale Group
Reliant Energy Wholesale Group, a division of Reliant Energy, is a leading provider of electricity, natural gas and energy services in the U.S.A. With a portfolio of electric power and co-generation plants in the Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, Texas and the West, Reliant has 20,000 megawatt of power generation capacity in operation, under construction or under contract.
Like any power generating facility, plants in the Reliant system experience routine outages for scheduled maintenance and forced outages due to mechanical failure that require immediate response. A single Reliant maintenance shop in Brookville, PA issues all the tools required for maintenance and repairs for some 25 plants from New York to Oregon and south to Florida. Some tools are drawn from satellite tool cribs that are moved where and when needed.
Boost Your Bottom Line with One Powerful Tool
Since 1985, ToolHound has been the standard in tool inventory management for companies in construction, maintenance, petrochemical, mining and more. Need proof? Five of the top ten companies on ENR’s Top 400 Contractors list use ToolHound.
ToolHound efficiently tracks tools issued to and returned by employees and contractors, as well as equipment transfers between various job sites and tool room locations. Using a comprehensive database, coupled with a simple and accurate barcode or RFID-based transaction system, ToolHound inventory management software can be securely accessed online from anywhere.
Solutions at Work: TransAlta
TransAlta, Canada's largest investor-owned electric utility, boasts more than $5 billion in assets and $1.6 billion in revenues, it recently discovered a problem at one of its plants that was costing the company both time and money. In its Edmonton plant tool crib, tools were flowing out to work sites but were not always being returned, and the company had no way to accurately track where the tools were or who had them last. Crib operators were armed with nothing more than a sign-out sheet and when tools didn't come back, there was no way to assign responsibility to anyone for the loss.
Unfortunately, tool theft, unreliable tool tracking, and a lack of tool accountability are common problems at plants everywhere. Too often, these plants operate with archaic "pen and paper" procedures that not only slow issue/return times, but also lack the tracking information required to help curb tool-related losses within an organization. TransAlta decided it was time to fix this problem in its Edmonton plant. A main ingredient...
The Great Automation 2023 State of the Law Report
As we look at today’s legal landscape, the Smokeball team is in awe of how rapidly the legal community has adopted new ways to attract and serve clients since the global pandemic began in 2020. Smokeball surveyed 200 law firms with less than 30 employees across the United States to better understand these industry shifts and emerging trends. In three short years, legal professionals have learned how to work from anywhere, provide clients with the same (or better) levels of service remotely, and run their law firms as efficient, profitable businesses.
But there is still a long road ahead to harness the true power of adopted technology. The next era will focus on streamlining: unifying systems to improve law firms’ workflows, increase profits, and better support client relationships.
Getting Automated
Smokeball designed this guide to help you understand and overcome your automation gap so you can offload all the work you don't want to do on a cloud-based platform. We'll walk through all the tasks your firm can automate, how to implement automation and measure your success.
Automation doesn't happen overnight, but you can transform your entire practice with the right tools, strategy, and action plan. Let's get started.
Can Technology Help Solve the Burnout Crisis?
The causes of the physician burnout crisis are many and complex, which makes it hard to find a solution. How does technology play a role, in both the problem and the solution?
Physicians who are burned out often feel powerless. The first step to relieving burnout is to realize you can take back control. One way physicians can do this is by seeking out technology solutions that support — rather than hinder — the physician-patient relationship.
This e-book will put the burnout crisis in context, discuss the role of technology in relieving the pressure and provide practical advice for physicians, practice executives and administrators looking for solutions.
One and Done: Health IT That Does It All
Healthcare technology that puts people first and considers the whole person—physical, behavioral, and oral health—is the future. Integrated technology meets integrated care. One platform and one partner that does it all—for people in every part of the healthcare experience. We’ve got you covered.
Three Steps to Easier Patient Visits and Better Practice Outcomes
Your primary care practice can save time and money by delivering on patient expectations. You can enhance your ability to keep up with regulatory demands and reporting requirements—and avoid unsatisfied and unresponsive patients—when you employ best practices that address patient needs.
In this e-book, you’ll learn strategies to avoid missed revenue and save staff time by using smart efficiency improvements, such as checking insurance information up front. You’ll also learn how you can get back to caring for patients, not chasing payments—and the secret to achieving strong financial outcomes. Finally, you’ll discover how you can get paid quickly, easily, and fully—all while addressing your patient demands for an improved, more efficient experience.
Three Steps to Easier Patient Visits and Better Practice Outcomes
Many patients are frustrated by long wait times and practice inefficiencies. They feel their care quality suffers when providers are too crunched for time. They want simpler payment processes and more transparent billing.
In this e-book, you’ll learn strategies to avoid missed revenue and save staff time by using smart efficiency improvements, such as checking insurance information up front. You’ll also learn how you can get back to caring for patients, not chasing payments—and the secret to achieving strong financial outcomes. Finally, you’ll discover how you can get paid quickly, easily, and fully—all while addressing your patient demands for an improved, more efficient experience.
Identify the EHR That’s Right for Your Practice
Healthcare delivery is changing, and the technology that has enabled providers to offer a virtual, contactless experience is here to stay. An integrated solution that fosters convenient care delivery and aligns well with your existing workflow can offer patients the access they need now and sets your practice up for a more successful future.
Whether you are looking to buy your first EHR, seeking to replace an existing, or consolidating EHRs to a single integrated solution, this guide will help you with the process. Use these nine steps to help you find the best EHR for your billing, reporting, and patient care needs.
TrustInSoft Analyzer Demo
Recognized by the NIST, TrustInSoft Analyzer goes further than any other static analysis tool by using formal methods to do the equivalent of billions of tests in order to mathematically guarantee the absence of bugs like buffer overflow, divison by zero, integer overflow, use after free, etc. TrustInSoft Analyzer mathematically proves the absence of even the most hidden bugs and integrates easily in the CI process.
Check out this demo of TrustInSoft Analyzer on this popular C library ARM mbed TLS.
CERT C Benchmark
The SEI CERT Coding Standards are software coding standards developed by the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. They are steadily becoming one of the key industry references for creating safe and secure software. One of these is SEI CERT C which has been updated for C11 but is also applicable to the earlier versions of the C language.
CERT C is primarily intended for software developers. However, it is also used by software integrators to define the requirements concerning code quality. There is a special interest for high-stakes and critical code developers who must build reliable code that is robust and resistant to attacks. That is why these standards are increasingly being used as a metric to evaluate the quality of the source code.
Ensure Your Software is Immune to Vulnerabilities and Runtime Errors
Exhaustive static analysis enables developers to find and eliminate 100% of undefined behaviors (defects like buffer overflow, uninitialized memory access, etc.) that can leave low-level code vulnerable to attack and runtime errors. It gives device manufacturers and their customers an iron-clad guarantee that their products are completely free of such vulnerabilities.
In the remainder of this white paper, we will examine in greater detail:
- The challenges of ensuring the security of low-level code in today’s environment,
- Why traditional code verification methods are not up to these challenges, and
- How exhaustive static analysis is able to meet those same challenges and guarantee cybersecurity and reliability in low-level code.
2022 Legal Practice Management Software Buying Guide
It's never been a secret that law has historically been slow to evolve and adapt alongside other professions. When Smokeball released the last version of this guide, “Is Legal Practice Management Software Worth It?” we acknowledged that many firms still avoided change due to fear or stubbornness. Such firms could still maintain their status quo without the help of software.
In 2022, the question of worth no longer applies: Legal practice management software is a necessity, not a nice-to-have. The shift to remote/hybrid law offices is permanent, and attorneys must permanently shift their mindsets and processes to keep up — and keep ahead.
Smokeball understands that legal practice management software is a major investment of your firm’s money and time. Because we want to give you the most value and productivity for your investment, we updated this guide to reflect the reality of 2022. The legal landscape has shifted significantly since you started your practice. Let’s take advantage of the opportunity together.
Guide to Implementing or Changing Legal Software
Deciding to change the technology your firm uses to manage cases, clients and billing requires commitment to see the process. Quite frankly, it’s not always easy. If your team is accustomed to working with a certain type of legal practice management software, change is difficult, even when everyone acknowledges that doing so is necessary.
If you're stuck and unable to move forward with transforming how your law firm uses technology, this guide will help you navigate the process. Along the journey, remember to give yourself and your team credit. Make no mistake, staying up to date with technology is no longer optional; it is a requirement.
