Facility Wizards Touts Simplicity and Speed

Are We Having Fun Yet? ... How do you track almost 200,000 leases, permits and right of way agreements? Well, if you're BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe), which operates a 33,500-mile rail network across 28 states and two Canadian provinces, you use Facility Wizards. That's according to Dave Johnson, President of Facility Wizards, whom I met with recently.

So Facility Wizards can handle the big stuff. But, starting with his whimsical wizard logo, Johnson also wants customers to know that doing business with his company should be easy and fun. Unlike some software vendors, he encourages customization. In fact, he describes Facility Wizards' three modules -- Lease Management, Work Order Tracking and Project Control -- as "custom-built, off-the-shelf software." And that's not an oxymoron.

Johnson wants his software to do ninety percent of what you need "out of the box." Then he'll work with you to provide the last ten percent. He calls this "iterative development." And he argues it's much more efficient than selling you a complicated product that does more than you'll ever need.

While some companies tout powerful SQL database architecture, Johnson touts the advantage of developing Facility Wizards using FileMaker Pro, a popular database product. The flexibility of FileMaker means that, while talking with a client on the phone, Johnson can use a remote access program, like PC Anywhere, to make instantaneous changes in a customer's installation. That's pretty neat.

--Peter Pike