How does your organisation track its off-site assets?

Most, if not all, organisations have equipment that employees take out of the office. Whether consultants taking laptops to customer sites or a company phone that home-workers take to play Candy Crush Saga™ make important business calls. These items often cost a hefty sum to replace, so keeping a comprehensive register of them and their current owner is crucial.

A large organisation contacted MRI recently to discuss its asset tracking requirement. It had just purchased a large number of expensive laptops for its employees that will be taken off-site regularly. To meet its requirement, we attached a barcode to each machine and then our client scanned the label and completed a short issue process, including a signature, to assign the asset to an employee. This gives the customer heightened security and vastly reduces the risk of loss. If they cannot locate a specific laptop, they can log in to the central system and check who it was allocated to.

We are often being asked by firms that employ large numbers of people to implement our specialist asset tracking mobile app solution, due to the frequency in which assets are taken home by their contractors and employees.

Here are some of the most commonly asked questions we get and our answers to them:

Will the system help to reduce the number of lost assets?

The software keeps a full log of which employee was issued an asset last and at which location. This enables organisations to keep track of asset movements easily, providing complete traceability of all item whereabouts and helping to reduce unexpected losses.

What level of detail can we store within your asset tracking solution?

Assets can be stored with all crucial details, such as purchase date and cost, serial number, manufacturer and their current owner. When completing routine asset tracking exercises, or full physical audits, equipment is easily identifiable via any of the aforementioned fields and if the person charged with completing the exercise cannot physically scan the device, they can ask the colleague that most recently had it to either scan it for them or to confirm its location and condition. Images can even be attached to asset records to show what state they are in!

Do we have to purchase expensive PDA scanners?

No! MRI’s asset tracking app is compatible with Apple and Android smart devices, such as iPhones or Samsung tablets. This means that users can download onto their existing equipment and no longer need to maintain expensive legacy scanners. App users do not even need to be connected to the Internet the whole time, as offline scanning is possible – it will just be the case that the results of the scan are synchronised to the central system whenever the device gets back on-line.

Does your app work with RFID labels?

Yes. It’s that simple! If you want to carry out asset tracking exercises without line-of-sight scanning, MRI’s mobile app is RFID compatible.

Are there any additional benefits to the improved audit trail?

When asset registers have a full audit trail and can be easily verified, it’s often the case that insurance premiums are more accurate and easier to claim against. This can save your organisation vast sums of money and valuable administration time.

If you have assets that are often taken off-site, or if you are simply looking to improve the monitoring of equipment at your company, get in touch today about MRI’s specialist asset tracking solution!