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Ignore Asset and Equipment Monitoring at Your Peril

By Daniel Stouffer

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 27Sep2010 Word count: 593 Viewed: 135 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Often, one of a company's worst enemies is its complexity. The business may have been subject to rapid growth, which is always welcome especially in this kind of climate, yet with growth comes a whole host of additional and often unforeseen issues. During any period of growth, priorities are established based on the most visible issues. Manpower must be trained to cope, customer relations must be fine-tuned, marketing must keep pace. However, less visible systems often fall by the wayside.

Asset and equipment management has often been a reactive activity rather than a proactive protection. Unless a comprehensive system has been established there will be little historical data to help those responsible for maintaining uptime. If a track record of maintenance has not been maintained, it will be difficult to quantify a machine's efficiency. As it approaches its theoretical end of life, should it be replaced, upgraded or should a different piece of machinery be considered altogether?

Often, one of a company's worst enemies is its complexity. The business may have been subject to rapid growth, which is always welcome especially in this kind of climate, yet with growth comes a whole host of additional and often unforeseen issues. During any period of growth, priorities are established based on the most visible issues. Manpower must be trained to cope, customer relations must be fine-tuned, marketing must keep pace. However, less visible systems often fall by the wayside.

Knowledge is power and especially in an increasingly competitive world. A business has to be able to micromanage its information if need be. It's far better to have too much information, in a controlled environment, than to be left in the dark when it comes to efficiency and performance.

With capital budgets under so much pressure and with investors peering over the shoulder of management executives, asset and equipment longevity must be realized. Many organizations are coming under pressure to extend usable asset lifecycles rather than to replace. This can be a false economy in certain circumstances, but only if you have the right intelligence to base your decision. If information about excessive callouts and issues with a certain piece of equipment are hidden amongst a mountain of paperwork, it cannot be dialed into the decision-making process.

With asset and equipment management policy in place, for the first time an organization may learn the real cost of its equipment ownership and be able to establish trustable benchmarks. Forward thinking businessmen have always craved a position of enlightenment, in order for them to be ready to make important decisions in a timely fashion.

While the depreciated cost of asset and equipment inventory is a sizable part of the company's annual expenditure, the energy associated with the performance of each asset is also of great importance. Combined, we can now see how vulnerable a business can be without access to actionable data.

For far too long, management has relied upon outdated spreadsheets to hold vital information about asset and equipment performance. Spreadsheets are by definition static and do not easily provide us with "what-if" scenarios for our projections. They are no match for digital systems that enable us to work from instant alarms or alerts.

Asset and equipment identification is the first step on the journey toward true business management. If the location, condition and usability of each asset is known on a real-time basis, security can be enhanced, productivity can be maintained or exceeded, liability can be reduced. Even further, reputations can be boosted as the organization's clearer visibility allows it to claim a position of sustainability.

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