Growing in a New Direction
Davey's TreeKeeper inventory management tool helps Park
Ridge, Illinois, maintain an ongoing database of its trees,
allowing crews to focus on their jobs rather than the paperwork.
Maintaining a tree inventory for a municipality can be a
tedious task, and while the landscape of database programs
can be intimidating as technology advances, Davey Resource
Group's (DRG's) TreeKeeper tool stands out as a program that
lets users manage their inventory with ease.
Park Ridge, Illinois, began using TreeKeeper in 2012 after
DRG performed an inventory of the city's trees. The city was
using a different inventory tool but switched to TreeKeeper
after experiencing how useful it was to manage the city's
forestry division data.
Joe Hansen, urban forester for the city, uses TreeKeeper to
keep tabs on all the trees located in publicly owned land,
such as parks, roadsides and at municipal buildings. With
TreeKeeper, Hansen is able to make notes in the field on a
tablet mounted in his car. He is also able to see the entire
history for any city-owned tree.
TreeKeeper tracks all the calls for tree work made by city
residents and all the work crews have done in the field.
Hansen also uses the software to generate work orders for
contractors.
"Before, administrative assistants would print a ticket, and
I would go out [to the site] and write down everything,
then go back [to the office] and input data," Hansen says.
"[TreeKeeper] makes it completely mobile, allows us to jump
from site to site and has really streamlined everything."
Hansen says using TreeKeeper has cut the Forestry Division's
time in half versus their previous inventory method.
Hansen's crew will perform about 2,200 tree inspections all
year long. Because of this, TreeKeeper has become a prevalent
tool in the city's toolbox. According to Hansen, Park
Ridge's Forestry Division has wrapped its entire day-to-day
around the TreeKeeper tool, from reporting to tracking and
budgeting. "To make a change to something else would be a
huge step in a different direction," he says.
With TreeKeeper, the city's Forestry Division is more
advanced than most other departments in the city
government. Other than emergency services like police and
fire, Park Ridge's Forestry Division is the only team in public
works that is completely mobile. "If we lost TreeKeeper, I
don't know what we would do," Hansen says.
THE PARK RIDGE FORESTRY DIVISION'S SUCCESS WITH TREEKEEPER IS JUST ONE EXAMPLE OF HOW
THE INVENTORY MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE CAN HELP URBAN FORESTERS STREAMLINE OPERATIONS.
Contact JIM KOZAK, Software Sales Developer,
at 330-612-1225 or treekeepersales@davey.com
to find out how TreeKeeper can help you.
VISIT TREEKEEPERSOFTWARE.COM
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