4 Quick Wins for Your Asset Management System

More PPE, more personal tools – managing assets is complicated, now more than ever

Asset management (referred to as asset tracking interchangeably) helps you keep track of valuable/vital items needed for day-to-day operations. The best asset tracking systems are easy to use, update and maintain so that information is readily available to workers and facility managers as needed.

With more PPE required, more personal tools and individual workstations being implemented in facilities, managing the new influx of assets can bog down production. Asset tags with barcodes makes it easy to digitally follow items throughout their entire life cycle and directly reduces costs by increasing efficiency.

Tracking assets digitally allows you to review, operate, maintain, and account for tools, equipment and PPE in the most efficient way.

Here are four quick wins you can achieve by updating your asset management system for digital tracking:

1) Review & access inventory quicker

Do you have enough tools to send a second team to a job-site, or take a new bid? Do you have enough PPE for employees returning to work? Are raw materials required for production running low?

Putting an asset management system into action gives you the power to quickly and easily answer these questions. Tagging all vital equipment, tools and devices with barcode asset tags optimizes your asset management inventory system, allowing you to digitally record, review and track assets with a simple scan. You can even create your own barcode labels using the barcode generator from Avery.

Digitally tracking assets provides instantly accessible and up to date information from anywhere you have internet access.

Imagine you’re at a job site, and impressed with your work, the building owner offers you a new bid for work on a second property. You pull out your smartphone or tablet and assess available resources within minutes. There’s no time wasted.

Safety Data Sheet example in SDS binder

2) Make it easier to find equipment

Setting up an asset inventory system does more than just allow you to take stock of equipment. Having ready access to information about tools and equipment also helps maximize operations efficiency, and can even improve morale.

Consider this scenario: Mike spends 30 minutes going from loading bay to loading bay looking for a handcart to load a cargo van with supplies needed at the new job site. If you were in Mike’s shoes you would be frustrated.

If you were Mike’s manager you’d recognize that during that half hour, you’re paying Mike to search for the handcart, not to load supplies. You don’t have to resign yourself to accepting time lost to searching for equipment and tools as an unavoidable cost of doing business.

A successful asset management system improves productivity (and morale) by empowering employees to replace time lost searching for equipment with more productive work.

Not to mention it doesn’t cost you half an hour of labor just to locate the tools to start the actual work you want done.

3) Increase maintenance efficiency

When you accepted the contract for that new job, did you take into account your cement mixer was awaiting repair? Maybe you don’t know maintenance is estimating a two-week window for the arrival of the part needed to make the repair.

Having a reliable asset tracking system supports efficiency by keeping maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) activities in one centralized, easily accessible database.

Workers can scan an asset tag on a broken item, enter a brief note or repair code, and the record is updated for anyone to view as needed. Recording helps maximize MRO efficiency.

Access to scheduled equipment maintenance and repairs in your asset management system makes it easy to coordinate regular maintenance with upcoming jobs, important orders or busy seasons. The accumulated data also makes it easier to estimate time and resource costs for future repairs.

4) Decrease theft and loss

One of the most popular benefits of using barcode asset tags for asset management is discouraging loss and theft of valuable items. Especially electronic equipment. In fact, IT asset tracking systems are perhaps the most recognizable use of barcode asset tags to the average person.

Undoubtedly you have seen an asset management system in action if you’ve ever used a company smartphone, tablet or laptop with a barcode asset tag applied.

Recording the location and check in/out logs of company devices, tools or equipment makes them much more difficult to steal and much easier to trace back to the last person responsible for the item.

Reconsider the imaginary situation with Mike and the missing handcart. Maybe he spends half a day looking for it, recruiting other employees to join the search. Eventually, it is determined the handcart is missing.

With a reliable asset management system in place the handcart’s location and last known user could be easily identified. Perhaps the handcart disappeared with a terminated employee who was using it on their last shift. Perhaps it was left at a job site and can be easily recovered. 

Explore more resources for racking up wins with your asset tracking system

Keep operations running smoothly and cut down on losses from theft and misplaced items with an optimized asset management system. Whether you’re just getting started or fine-tuning a system for digitally tracking assets, here are the best resources: