How effectively are you tracking assets across your supply chain enterprise? The value of this function is too important to ignore its success. Heartland suggests you look for these signs that it’s time for a new asset management system.
Your paper trail is too long - In this age of technology and sustainability , there’s no good reason to rely on manual, paper-intensive systems. They’re inefficient and leave too much room for errors. Those mistakes—like lost or damaged assets and inaccurate reporting—are chipping away at your profitability.
Picking lists, purchase orders, repair orders, cycle counts, and shipping manifests are some of the physical documents that pile up in your warehouse. Not only are they clumsy to juggle but someone has to file them correctly at some point. Then, if you need to find any of this paperwork, you spend time searching, only to refile it (again, correctly) when you’re done. Look at all the opportunities for mistakes! Paper manifests for receiving and shipping are equally wasteful. In a rugged environment, like a warehouse loading dock, a digital asset tracking system presents a more reliable solution. The paperless eco-friendly alternative doesn’t pile up dog-eared messy paperwork with notes and data that someone then has to enter manually into your system, another avenue for human error.
You’re wasting too much time and money on tracking assets - Manual inventory counts and picking rely too much on documents that could reflect data entry errors or can be misread or lost. All of these situations require additional labor for tracking assets. A recent IBM study estimated that an enterprise asset management system increases labor productivity by 28%.
An efficient enterprise asset management system provides a digital record of every asset throughout its lifecycle. Just tap on your mobile device wherever you are, and the digital mapping instantly gives you its exact location. RFID tags and IoT-enabled sensors, coupled with GPS for exterior tracing and Bluetooth for interior tracking, provide a reliable and easily accessible solution for tracking assets throughout your enterprise—even when they’ve left the facility. When you implement more advanced warehouse technology, your workers no longer waste time hunting through the warehouse for misplaced assets. You dramatically reduce the amount of losses because of this detailed, real-time visibility.
Related: Redefine inventory tracking in the age of diversification.
Visibility is sometimes foggy - Is your asset management system delivering reliable insights in real time? When you need to know an asset’s location, equipment status, inventory counts, compliance records, shipping reports, fleet status, or other business intelligence, can you access the data instantly? And are you confident the information is accurate to that exact moment? If you’re uncertain, that’s one of the signs it’s time for a new asset management system.
Is your wireless network infrastructure robust enough to support your entire enterprise, from end to end? A massive warehouse is a challenging environment for visibility, both physical and digital. Without a reliable, up-to-date network, you’re losing visibility to dead zones. Remove bottlenecks, identify traffic patterns (such as high usage and low usage areas), pinpoint potential safety risks, and protect your data security with a secured wireless network.
Related: How to Protect Assets from Incomplete Visibility
Your equipment is breaking down too often - An effective asset management system has built-in protection for all of your assets. It will track maintenance records and provide alerts for predictive maintenance, potential problems, and other issues that could lead to costly malfunction—which incurs repairs, replacement, and downtime expenses. The IBM study also reported that an enterprise asset management system reduces the cost of repairs and equipment maintenance by 17%, a factor that contributes to the strong ROI of the solution.
Related: How to Enhance Maintenance Workflow s with Voice Technology
The asset tracking system isn’t centralized - Does your system work across the entire enterprise? Are all stakeholders able to access the data they need? Can they easily upload their own records to share? Your system should work seamlessly, enabling access for shareable data to authorized members of your team. Avoid delays and guesswork by providing them with the essential information to support an effective process for tracking assets.
Related: 3 Misconceptions about IoT
Accessing and sharing files and reports are time-consuming tasks - Are you spending too much time finding the documentation and then sharing it? Even if you have digital records—spreadsheets, pdfs, reports—how easy is it to send or share them as needed? Once you rid your systems of physical documents, apply the same storage solution as for all of your personal digital files: the cloud. Cloud asset management keeps all of your tracking on a virtual or physical server. Last year, Gartner predicted that 65% of workloads would be optimal or ready for cloud delivery by 2027, a 20% increase in five years. In addition, they forecasted that 60% of data center teams will have necessary automation and cloud skills by 2027, twice the amount as in 2022. Are you among this majority?
Related: Are You Stuck in a Fragmented Supply Chain?
Compliance reporting is an ongoing challenge - Warehouses must often adhere to compliance regulations. The process can be labor-intensive with piles of documents. Or you can use an updated enterprise asset management system that lets you pull up the required reports and certifications to demonstrate your compliance. With all the risks that come with non-compliance, having a comprehensive yet simple solution is a major reason you should deploy an effective asset management solution.
Related: 7 Workflows to Target in Your Warehouse Optimization Strategy
Work with Heartland for real-world asset management - Your enterprise asset management system is not a one-and-done proposition. A warehouse is a dynamic environment with countless moving parts throughout every hour of every day. You should ensure that your method of tracking assets is as up-to-date as all of your warehouse technology. The cost of hesitating is your profitability and efficiency. Heartland specializes in warehouse automation, customizing solutions for enterprises of all sizes. In addition to hardware and software, we bring our unique managed services: AlwaysOn and AlwaysConnected. With AlwaysOn, Heartland manages all of your mobile devices, including configuring devices, managing repair, monitoring security, maintaining a spare pool to avoid downtime, automatically deploying upgrades, and securely and safely decommissioning and disposing of outdated technology. AlwaysConnected is Heartland’s protection of your network. We design, deploy, and monitor your network. Our expert team of network specialists proactively watch every aspect, so you no longer worry about network performance.
Related: How Asset Management Alleviates Top Manufacturing Challenges
Contact Heartland to ensure that your enterprise asset management system is truly managing your valuable assets throughout their lifecycle.