What Is Asset Management?

What is Asset Management?

1. Benefits of Asset Management
2. Why You Should Use Asset Management
3. How to Use Asset Management
4. Where Can You Use Asset Management

Asset management is not a new term for most people. Most people associate it with the management and protection of their financial assets, but that is not the only way to think about it. Think about your physical assets, basically, your things. If you have many physical assets, then you have to find a way to protect them from people that might want to take them. Your turnstile system in the Philippines might be able to prevent that from happening, but these days you need more than just prevention. You need to know how to track your assets.

Asset tracking also referred to as asset management, is the method you use to track your physical assets. It can take the form of a barcode attached to them that you can scan or a GPS or RFID tag that broadcasts their location. If you are operating a business that involves letting clients borrow and use physical items, you need asset tracking to make sure they don’t end up taking it or tampering with it.

Benefits of Asset Management

Asset tracking is just as important as managing your inventory. Things such as knowing the location and status of your object, maintenance schedule, and other important information about your organization’s physical assets are crucial when you are operating a business or service.

Asset tracking is also important to your organization’s profits and overall harmony, as people become culpable and responsible for locating and replacing lost or missing physical assets. The items that have come to the end of their lifecycle can also be easily detected and replaced when included in an asset management system.

Why You Should Use Asset Management

You should use asset management systems because you do not want to lose, misplace, forget, or worse, have any of your assets and other things stolen. It’s just that simple. If you own a business, many of the previously stated things can and will cost you money, whether it’s for replacing, reacquiring or maintaining your items.

Take a hotel business for example. Hotel owners and managers give a lot of trust to their guests that they won’t take anything from the hotel room for themselves, things that are not meant to be taken. Examples of these include remote controls, blow dryers, DVD players, digiboxes, and many more. Since hotels get so many visitors per year, especially during peak months, it can be hard to keep track of every single asset in every single hotel room every single day. This is where asset management systems come in to help because they make the task of knowing where everything is simple.

How to Use Asset Management

Most asset management systems have a simple set-up. For RFID based systems, there are only 2 components if you exclude the asset itself. You have the RFID reader that can be either long-range or short-range, then you have the RFID tag itself. RFID tags can come as an active tag, a passive tag, or a semi-passive tag. Active tags can be read from far away and are usually small devices powered by a battery while passive tags can only be read from short distances usually no longer than 3 feet. Passive tags can also be really small so for small assets such as tokens and trinkets, tracking their location and status is still possible.

To actually use it, just attach the RFID tag to the object you wish to track and manage, then register it on the reader (or vice-versa). The reader, connected to a computer, can be strategically placed where it can scan the tag inconspicuously. Think of doors, entrances, and other access points where someone could pass by while carrying the items. That way, you are notified when objects aren’t in the place where they are supposed to be.

Where Can You Use Asset Management?

While there is no problem with using asset management systems at home, it’s not that necessary because there are cheaper, more convenient ways to track your items in your own home. Where asset management systems tend to shine and work most effectively is in businesses.

You have the already mentioned hospitality services like hotels, but it can also work beautifully in other industries and fields such as laundry businesses to track linen packages and laundry orders. Asset tracking solutions also work best with logistics companies because they need a reliable tracking system for their shipments, packages, and cargo. The military can also benefit from asset tracking and management with RFID tags providing a good way of monitoring firearm use and vehicular tracking. Any business or industry that needs its assets monitored and managed can greatly benefit from asset management systems.

Key Takeaway

Asset management and its systems are a revolutionary innovation in a world where valuable things are easily stolen, misplaced, or forgotten. Don’t leave the protection of your assets to security guards and local turnstile systems alone. For a good example of an asset management system, try ELID’s asset management solutions that have a full range of RFID tags and its respective readers.