Are you using all of your assets to your advantage? Do you know how you’re utilizing your assets? Can you account for every individual asset that might affect how your business operates? If not, it’s time to invest in an asset management system.
If you’re new to asset management systems, here’s what you need to know about them, how they work, and why they're a real benefit to your organization.
What Is an Asset Management System?
An asset management system, or asset management software, is a dedicated, centralized application allowing your business to track usage of your assets in real-time. You can see:
- Details of the asset
- Where it is located
- How it is being used
- Who is using the asset
This is often used in maintenance management, where it’s referred to as a maintenance management system. However, it can be used with software and hardware assets and even managing your own teams.
As such, many businesses use asset management systems for more complex functions than just tracking assets, such as tracking vendor performance, optimization of portfolios, and optimizing costs. Asset management can also be used in different functions like inventory management for tracking various products or items.
Benefits of Asset Management
When an asset management system is handled properly, businesses are the ones to reap the benefits.
Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to your assets and operational efficiency. When you have a huge fleet or a large team (or both) spreadsheets simply are not enough to keep track of everything and everyone, because managers simply cannot collate all the details to make informed decisions.
Asset management systems take the difficult work out of your managers’ hands, allowing them to take a bird’s eye view of the whole organization and inventory. They’ll always know where an asset is and how it’s being utilized. Asset management solutions can be integrated with many other solutions, too, like POS systems, reporting software, or even general business operations solutions.
They’ll also know key details about the asset, such as whether it often breaks down in the same way or if it’s overdue for maintenance. Plus, they can also track the efficiency of their teams and allocate man-hours to quickly deal with issues.
Does Your Business Need One?
This brings us to the central question: does your business need an asset management system?
That depends on whether you want to use your assets effectively.
Even if you have the best management team in the business, they’re only human. They can only keep track of so many details at once, and when they’re dealing with a large fleet, chances are they also have other tasks to coordinate.
In other words, they just don’t have the time or manpower to manage every detail on their own.
An asset management system makes it easy to take control of your fleet. You’ll always know where every asset is, and you’ll always be able to access details of each asset to make educated decisions about that asset.
The Smarter Way to Handle Assets
In short, an asset management system is a smarter way to handle your business assets. And if you’re trying to stay competitive, it’s an investment in your success.
Still want to learn about asset management? Make sure to check out our blog for more great posts, like this one on the importance of a predictive maintenance program.