Posts tagged equipment inventory

The Economic Impact of Asset Tracking

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1 year ago
by Norm Mistal in

You can’t turn on the news these days without hearing about how the economy is affecting one thing or another. I would like to take a radical glass is half full approach and look at how today’s economy could potentially have a positive impact on something – asset tracking. We all know budgets are tight and a lot of new equipment purchases are being delayed. Isn’t that the perfect time to do an internal inventory of the equipment you already have?

Let’s look at the objectives of an asset tracking program. First, it should make a company more efficient – allowing them to know where a specific piece of equipment is and other pertinent information, i.e. maintenance information, etc. Now look at the alternative – companies spending thousands of dollars in manhours alone searching for lost assets; purchasing unnecessary replacement equipment only to find the “lost” equipment later. In addition, unused assets may be an unnecessary tax liability and cause a company to overpay insurance premiums.

Implementing an effective asset tracking program is not terribly difficult. Different technologies are available, i.e. bar code and/or RFID depending on the needs of your specific company. Centennial Associates with MetalCraft labels help companies implement an asset tracking program.

We all need to be careful about how we spend our money these days. Companies with an effective asset tracking program will be ahead of the game when the economy turns around (and, yes, it will turn around). And seriously, who wouldn’t want that?
Reprinted with permission MetalCraft Blog Wednesday, August 19, 2009

January 2010 Asset Management Trends

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2 years ago
by Norm Mistal in

Asset Management Trends
January, 2010

Organizations need automated asset recording, tracking and management in this uncertain environment.

For the past several years of economic uncertainty, organizations have especially tried to account for and exploit their investment in physical assets.   Consequently, they have turned to automated asset recording and tracking (among other business intelligence tools) to diminish the cost associated with asset management, to lower risk, while minimizing time needed to properly report information.

With diminishing workforce numbers, in physically dispersed locations and other active organizational changes plus stricter control requirements, manual processes to track physical assets may be unacceptably prolonged, protracted and even inaccurate.

  • Manual processes are time-consuming — In a dynamically changing environment, it is challenging and time-consuming to manually update the asset database every time a new piece of hardware is purchased, installed or removed or a hardware item changes. Without recurrent updates, the utility of the information about those assets declines in significance and simply put…becomes less useful.
  • Management reports and decisions—Asset managers can typically avail themselves of a fair amount of asset records – but conscientious analysis of that data is key for taking important actions. Up-to-date counts of physical assets, age, condition, cost and value analysis, are essential.
  • Manual processes are costly — Ensuring that asset data is correct and consistent can entail a lot of procedure and effort, both to initialize the process and more importantly to update it periodically. This effort can involve significant time and could be rather costly.
  • Need for a single, accurate asset database — It’s important that organizations maintain some central asset management database to store information of various kinds – even if departments or divisions also maintain their own data This information is critical to make strategic decisions for the entire organization including efficient asset management, accurate planning for upcoming projects, and for identifying and extracting potential asset savings.

As a result of external uncertainties and desire for greater understanding of and control over physical assets, organizations should move to automated asset tracking to optimize asset levels, reduce risk and manage or reduce asset management costs.

If you would like Asset Management Trends to cover a particular issue you’re wrestling with, please let us know.

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