Advantages of Asset Tracking Software for Remote-First Companies

Looking at the current trend, as various companies are going fully remote and making a buzz as a remote-first company, is new normal.

But from the perspective of an organization, managing the assets and/or equipment assigned to their employees is a bigger pain. And performing the scheduled maintenance activity is much tougher than it seems.

And, those companies with several facilities, where they have various assets and equipment that can't be moved out, need someone to operate and maintain. It can be monitored remotely and notified to the person responsible for maintenance activity whenever required.

Depending upon the industry, these facilities may have heavy machinery, medical devices, boilers, HVAC system, etc. And if regular maintenance activity is not performed on those types of equipment, this could result in a severe breakdown.

So, managing these assets or performing equipment maintenance for facilities is very important to run a business smoothly. Also keeping the maintenance record of all maintenance activities can be help plan the next activity.

All of the above activities and records can be managed using Asset Infinity CMMS. This maintenance management software can help these facilities in maintaining equipment when employees are working remotely with the help of various technology like IoT, RFID, BLE, GPS, etc.

Also Read: How Asset Management App Keeps Track of Business Revenue?

Advantages of Using an Asset Management Software in Remote-First Company

1. Remote Asset Tracking

Since employees are not in their offices and every employee has taken all necessary assets with them such as laptops mouse, keyboard, hard disk, etc. for fulfilling work remotely.

But keeping track of these assets and track accountability for management personal is barely possible. Therefore, real-time tracking & monitoring is very crucial for remote assets.

If we talk about real-time asset tracking in shipping and air cargo business, the containers may have very valuable & costly assets. Having the complete movement history along with the current location is one of the critical information that can easily be tracked with asset tracking management software.

As we know their market is small but it is calculated that it will rise in the next few upcoming years.

According to a source,  “The total market value for trailer and cargo container tracking solutions reached an estimated ‚¬ 1.1 billion in 2019. Growing at a CAGR of 16.25, the total market size is forecasted to reach ‚¬ 2.2 billion in 2024.”

In short, an organization's key management people need to know whereabouts of all assets in real-time as well as their condition, status, and location, etc. Here remote asset tracking software can help.

2. Cloud-Based Equipment Management

As we are aware of cloud-based technology that allows us to access data from anywhere. With this technology-enabled solution, remote working employees can track and report all the necessary information.

This cloud-based technology also enables employees to retrieve information of an asset when they need and update them if required. This could be bind as per the user role permission, which gives an admin to have complete access control. Hence, it is effective in remote working scenarios.

If we speak about an asset management system, it is very efficient for equipment management as well. In a similar fashion as above, with cloud-based remote asset tracking software, activities for managing equipment can be scheduled and performed.

Remote admins can easily plan out the complete maintenance activity and set alerts or reminders as well. It will alert and notify via app notification, text, or email when maintenance needs to be done on a particular asset.

And when maintenance is done, they can update the status and remarks for the same. The changes or updates will be synchronized in real-time over the cloud-based software.

3. Mobile Access

A cloud-based asset management software with its mobile app can be used in various other business activities without any additional tool for remote working employees.

For example, employees can see and manage work orders, set priorities of each work order, perform an audit, or scan barcode/QR code to get the associated data with a particular tag, etc.

Also Read: How Mobile Device Management and IT Asset Management Go Hand in Hand

Mobile apps also enable employees to schedule maintenance that improves the productivity of the organization.

4. Remote Maintenance Scheduling

In an organization, several assets need maintenance and if maintenance is not given on time then the result can be disastrous. To eliminate the chances of an accident, negligence shall be avoided when an asset, equipment, or machine is not operating properly.

Maintenance activity must be scheduled to avoid any damage or suffering to the equipment or the business. Maintenance scheduling can be done with asset management software and it will alert the responsible employee, then the person can perform the maintenance activity.

5. Work Order Management

An activity performed by the maintenance team to resolve customer's asset-related issues is known as a work order.

As we know customer experience is a big factor in terms of loyalty. Therefore, the company needs to ensure that customers have a good experience and work order shall be completed on time and according to the priority.

When employees are working remotely the quality of work & business shall not be compromised. Because equipment maintenance for facilities is very important. For the same reason, the team needs to be more proactive and take care of equipment efficiently.

To keep assets in the best shape and optimized, several maintenance techniques and categories are there such as proactive maintenance (preventive maintenance), reactive maintenance (corrective maintenance), and emergency maintenance.

6. Remote Incident Management

The cloud-based incident management system is also known as a ticket management system or helpdesk management system.

When employees are working from home, they need a high level of coordination to respond to the incident.

With the remote asset tracking management software, the incident can be reported with a specific priority (high, low, or moderate) and the ticket is generated for each issue and assigned to a particular technical support team agent. After that, it is the responsibility of the agent to resolve and close the ticket as per the priority.

With the help of incident management software, no ticket can go unnoticed because it reminds agents after a particular specified time. Incase if the ticket is not getting resolved, the agent can escalate it to the upper level of the team member or assign it to a different team.

Remote asset tracking management software allows the management to collect information and analytics about an incident. It also tracks the time taken to resolve the issue with complete details of an incident.

Conclusion

Working from home seems more exciting but collaborating with team members can be tough in terms of asset management and maintenance activity. This could be easily resolved with the help of an asset management system.

Hence, asset management software is certainly helpful as it reminds and notifies for the task to be performed. And it also allows an employee to know the maintenance schedules along with its complete information.

According to which employees can schedule and manage maintenance activities. Even when employees work remotely, this software can streamline your organization's maintenance management.

Also Read: What Is Work Order Management Software? What Are Its Benefits?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Define preventive, emergency, and corrective maintenance?‍

A. Preventive maintenance is done to detect potential issues this is one of the best maintenance activities. It keeps assets optimized and increases asset life.
B. Emergency maintenance asset breakdown has occurred and it needs to be brought back to running condition as quickly as possible.
C. Corrective maintenance is used when asset failure occurs and, in this process, an issue identified and resolved. After that asset is restored in operational condition depending on the priority of asset.

2. Which type of maintenance is best for my business?‍

The best maintenance type depends upon your business nature and asset requirement. Maintenance scheduling can be done with medium priority for corrective maintenance and with high priority when preventive maintenance is required. It completely depends upon the requirement and the nature of the equipment or the asset.

3. What are the factors that decide assets need maintenance or not?‍

Several factors that help up decides that assets need maintenance or not. Major factors are:
1. Past failure rate
2. Cost of asset failure
3. Repair cost for an asset
4. Condition of an asset
5. Usage Frequency
6. Safety measures
7. And Current maintenance strategy