A Game Plan for Tool Management

A game plan for tool management

August 4, 2026
By the Blue Print Editorial Team

How do you transform an arena floor from an ice rink into a basketball court? It’s all in a day’s work for the Benchmark International Arena, home of the Tampa Bay Lightning and host to more than 150 events per year. Providing world-class fan experiences requires round-the-clock work. It also requires tools – hundreds of them – and a way to ensure they’re always accessible to the technicians who need them.

When it came to revamping their tool management system, the facilities team at Benchmark needed a game plan. They were still using clipboards and sign-out sheets to track some very important (and expensive) items.

They wanted a way to enhance tool tracking. Now they just needed a way to make it happen.

Enter the FASTVend lockers. These devices make it easy for workers to check out and return tools. Behind the scenes, the reporting tools allow supervisors to track tool movement and stay on top of required service. It’s been a gamechanger for managing tools across teams and work shifts.

“These lockers can be used for just about any tool you can imagine. And training is something we feel is important, but we also want to make sure it’s simple,” said Bob Small, a specialist with Fastenal. “We want to make sure your employees don’t have to go through a long litany of trainings. If they can buy a Snickers bar from a candy machine, they can use this.”

“This is exactly what we needed. Because there’s some frustration when you don’t know who has your tools and if they’ve come back.” – Jason Gibson, senior director of facility services

Making tools traceable

For Gibson’s team, the biggest takeaway is tracking. They now know when tools and equipment are checked out from any location across the arena. They know who took it and whether it was returned on time. Say a shift ends at 4 p.m., and the tool hasn’t been put back. The locker can alert a supervisor to ensure that tool is returned.

For tools that need to be calibrated – some every six months and others every ten uses – the lockers help with that, too. Once an alert is set, equipment needing maintenance won’t disrupt the schedule.

Another trait of the lockers is controlled access. The three lockers in the conversion shop and two in carpentry can be programmed so that only people in those specific departments have access. No risk of losing or swapping tools.

“You can also set it up for individual tools,” said Small. “So, even if you’re not in engineering or carpentry, but there’s an item we want you to have access to, you can set up that one item to give access.”

Shedding light on supplies

While their main goal was tracking tools and other assets, the facilities team also had a slew of consumables that needed attention. That third locker in the conversion shop? It came with a bonus feature: scales. This allows Fastenal to track the current inventory levels and plan their service to ensure continuous supply.

“As you get to a minimum level, we see that before you’re out,” said Small. “You’re not having a technician come up and say, ‘Hey, I’m out of tape’ or ‘I need some silicone,’ and nobody knew. We come in before it runs out and replenish it.”

No more relying on pen and paper to count supplies. They not only know where items are throughout the facility, they know how much there is and when more is coming. A solution for modern inventory management.

A lost tool is lost time

The biggest win? For Jason Gibson, it’s capturing time for what matters.

“Missing tools, like power tools, start to add up, and unfortunately they can go missing,” he said. “That’s where having the opportunity to truly hold somebody accountable is important, because we know exactly who has it at what time and if they put it back.”

Eliminating that worry altogether allows the team to focus on providing best services to crowds of fans attending hockey games and other events.

“I think we made the right choice,” said Gibson. “We’re looking forward to it with our team, to train them on this and know they’re going to put our tools back.”

The goal of these lockers goes beyond organizing storage or improving inventory handling. They’re meant to establish a sustainable partnership that has room to grow – a reliable connection that will be there long after the initial installation.