Efficient management of your assets and equipment has become an essential component to a comprehensive asset maintenance management system.
In a recent study, 33% of facility managers were extremely interested in utilizing an asset and equipment module, while 73% were specifically looking for simple inventory, equipment, and asset tracking.
Although traditional CMMS systems were designed to manage the creation and tracking of work orders, asset management is now equally as important as digital work order management.
Instead of thinking about these modules as separate features however, it’s important to understand that both play a fundamental role in streamlined maintenance management and are often presented as an integrated solution.
Facility managers are understanding the importance of asset and equipment management mostly due to the large cost savings that a solid program provides.
From centralizing data to reducing time between jobs to aiding in proper preventive maintenance management, asset and equipment management has bridged the gap between servicing equipment breakdowns and planning for maintenance tune-ups.
Smarter analysis of asset information has helped facility managers make more informed and timely decisions.
Read on to discover 4 ways that asset and equipment management saves your organization money.
1. Centralization of asset and equipment information
Acting as a giant maintenance database, asset management provides users with the ability to house all asset information in one convenient place.
By storing information such as warranty info, serial numbers, general documents and O&M manuals, equipment model images, and even ID tags, data is easily referenced by multiple users at any given moment. The accessibility of this information helps workers standardize processes and retrieve information much more quickly than traditional paper-based or multiple spreadsheet systems.
Vast accessibility is also made possible with the help of web-based CMMS software. Users can open documents from any computer or smart device at any time of day or night. This shifts precious job-hours away from sorting through materials and searching for relevant information, to quickly responding to equipment breakdowns and conducting planned maintenance on critical assets.
By eliminating slow disorganized asset systems, organizations are able to decrease the time between jobs, complete work faster, and save labor costs by focusing on maintenance related tasks only.
2. Provide inventory management insight
Along a similar vein of centralizing asset information comes better insight into spare parts management. CMMS systems now fuse asset and inventory management software together, providing accessible data on your current spare parts quantities for each asset or piece of equipment.
Inventory management communicates the exact part needed to fix a specific unit and indicates the quantity level of each part. If a part reaches at or below the minimum quantity threshold, an automated email is sent to notify users of reordering.
Accessing an asset’s inventory information is a helpful tool to ensure that breakdowns are dealt with quickly and that all critical parts are available when needed most. This helps to reduce equipment downtime and makes your overall operations much more productive.
3. Creating a Solid Preventive Maintenance Program
A vital component of any maintenance operations is the ability to conduct preventive maintenance on critical equipment. By regularly scheduling asset inspections or cleanings you can increase the longevity of your assets and dramatically reduce equipment downtime.
A solid PM system leads to increased productivity and ensures your operations run smoothly. Asset management houses the relevant data needed to create a robust preventive maintenance strategy.
From critical dates such as installation and warranty info to important documentation on how to conduct proper asset inspections, a PM system pulls relevant data from your asset’s database to help make scheduling decisions and create standard task checklists for workers to follow.
4. Understanding the benefits of visual asset mapping
Advanced dashboards allow users to quickly locate their assets and pieces of equipment directly from interactive floor plans. Assets are plotted across an organization’s floor plan, mapping out their exact location within each section of the facility.
Views such as these help users to locate assets across large-scale facilities and are especially useful in organizations with many trainees who may not be familiar with the location of each important asset.
Interactive floor plans also allow users to graphically interact with equipment information by clicking on the asset’s icon. From there you can view all asset information and its corresponding work order history.
Advanced tools make it even easier to work with your asset information, combining the impressive capabilities of utilizing a maintenance database with powerful asset mapping technology.
Asset tracking software is one of the most important tools that a maintenance management system offers. By utilizing its many capabilities and ensuring that it captures a host of asset information for each piece of equipment, organizations will see impressive cost savings primarily in the form of time optimization.
Centralizing your asset information will allow workers to spend less time finding relevant documentation, waiting for necessary spare parts to be ordered, and locating critical assets to be serviced. Saving time on administrative tasks allows workers to shift their focus towards critical maintenance projects and dramatically reduces the time spent on each job.
By utilizing asset and equipment management as one tool amongst an arsenal of maintenance management features, your maintenance department becomes a competitive advantage rather than an expense, ultimately contributing to a stronger bottom line.
By Jonathan Davis
Jonathan writes about asset management, maintenance software, and SaaS solutions in his role as a digital content creator at Eptura. He covers trends across industries, including fleet, manufacturing, healthcare, and hospitality, with a focus on delivering thought leadership with actionable insights. Earlier in his career, he wrote textbooks, edited NPC dialogue for video games, and taught English as a foreign language. He hold a master's degree in journalism.
