Helpful Summary
- Overview: In this article, we explain enterprise asset management (EAM), which helps organizations monitor assets throughout their lifecycle, ensuring efficiency and reducing costs.
- Why Trust the Website: At Bluetally, we offer seamless and efficient enterprise asset management. Our customer reviews demonstrate our capacity to streamline real-time asset tracking for major organizations.
- Why It Matters: Monitoring assets minimizes downtime, optimizes usage, and reduces operational costs, leading to improved efficiency and compliance.
- Action Points: Implement EAM practices like regular audits, asset tagging, and maintenance scheduling to extend asset lifecycles and optimize costs.
- Further Research: Check out our blog to learn more about managing different assets for various industries.
Looking to Learn about Enterprise Asset Management?
You can’t get past tracking your company assets— whether you're an IT manager, procurement officer, or facilities director. This is where enterprise asset management (EAM) comes into play.
Implementing EAM can significantly reduce operational costs through improved maintenance practices and optimized asset utilization.
In this BlueTally guide, we’ll walk you through the essentials of EAM, its benefits, best practices, and how platforms like BlueTally can supercharge the processes.
Why Listen to Us?
At BlueTally, we have significant expertise in addressing challenges related to enterprise asset management, saving time and enhancing efficiency. We have helped several businesses and organizations optimize their asset management processes.
By implementing our tool, our clients have upgraded their traditional asset management systems into centralized, real-time platforms that offer better asset visibility and operational efficiency.
What Is Enterprise Asset Management?
Enterprise asset management (EAM) involves tracking and managing the entire lifecycle of an organization's assets. These assets can vary widely as physical items (e.g. computers, machinery, and vehicles), or intangible items (e.g. software licenses, patents, contracts, and intellectual property).
Effective EAM is not just about inventory tracking but also includes planning, maintenance, and depreciation calculations. The primary goal of EAM software is to:
- Maximize asset use
- Make sure that each asset contributes optimally to the organization's productivity and efficiency
- Minimize costs associated with maintenance, acquisition, and downtime
For example, in the transportation industry, EAM supports providers by:
- Automating fleet management and maintenance
- Providing real-time insights to schedule repairs and avoid service disruptions
- Enhancing fuel efficiency tracking
- Ensuring regulatory compliance for fleets
Thus, implementing a strong EAM strategy helps organizations extend asset lifespan and improve operational capabilities.
Key Elements of Enterprise Asset Management
Asset Tracking
EAM tracks location, status, and user assignment of each asset by regularly updating records to reflect any changes in asset condition or user assignment.
By doing so, you can ensure optimal use of your resources and quickly identify any assets that may need maintenance or reassignment.
Inventory Management
Keeping track of stock levels involves monitoring items as they arrive and depart from the storage facility. This process includes regular check-ins to update inventory records when new shipments are received, and check-outs when items are dispatched for use or sale.
Inventory management in EAM also ensures that stock levels are maintained within optimal ranges without overstocking.
Audit and Compliance
In EAM, regularly reviewing asset documentation and processes ensures they meet the standards set by relevant authorities.
Regular audits are conducted to identify any gaps or areas for improvement, so that all operations align with legal and industry requirements and are compliant. This mitigates risks and maintains the organization's integrity.
Contract and License Management
Overseeing the entire lifecycle of contracts and licenses includes timely renewals and monitoring expiration dates. This process involves maintaining organized records, negotiating terms, and collaborating with relevant stakeholders to address any contractual issues.
In the case of license management, EAM ensures that asset-related agreements like vehicle licenses in transportation or service contracts remain compliant.
Depreciation Management
EAM monitors and records the drop in value of assets over time to ensure accurate financial reporting and asset valuation. This helps businesses account for wear and tear, obsolescence, and other factors affecting asset longevity.
At BlueTally, we automatically calculate depreciation using the straight-line method— where asset value decreases by a fixed amount each year. We also provide depreciation reports and set specific periods for each asset category.
Additionally, you can create customized asset reports based on these depreciation details.
Benefits of Enterprise Asset Management
Enhanced Efficiency
By automating the tracking and management of assets through EAM, you save hours that can be used for more strategic tasks and decision-making processes. EAM’s automation reduces the burden of repetitive manual tasks and minimizes human error, leading to more accurate data management.
For example, our seamless integration with Microsoft Intune allows for automatic:
- Asset updates and syncing of information
- Check-outs
- Asset registry
- Importation of an employee's department into BlueTally
reducing a lot of manual work.
Cost Savings
Companies can save between 12% and 18% by using preventive maintenance over reactive. Imagine if more points of failure could be identified earlier— that would result in significant savings on repairs.
Effective enterprise asset management saves costs by helping organizations avoid unnecessary purchases. By tracking current assets and their conditions, you can optimize using them and address maintenance needs at the right time.
This will extend the asset's lifespan and maximize the return on investment (ROI).
Improved Compliance
Maintaining detailed records of asset usage and lifecycle ensures compliance with both internal policies and external regulations.
You can effortlessly track every aspect of your assets through comprehensive audit trails. These trials provide a clear history of asset movement, ownership changes, and condition updates, helping you stay informed and compliant at all times.
At BlueTally, we simplify the compliance process, reducing the risk of errors and ensuring that you meet all necessary standards and requirements.
6 Effective Ways to Optimize Enterprise Asset Management
1. Conduct an Asset Inventory
Take stock of all your assets, including equipment, devices, and other valuable items. Carefully note their specific locations, current conditions, and user assignments for a comprehensive overview.
At BlueTally, our intuitive asset tracking feature simplifies this process by providing real-time updates, streamlining data entry, and offering easy access to all relevant information, ensuring you always have the most accurate asset insights to conduct an inventory.
2. Implement an Asset Tagging System
To effectively manage and track your assets, implement an asset tagging system using barcodes or RFID tags. These technologies allow for quick scanning and effortless updating of asset information, ensuring accuracy and reducing the chances of errors.
BlueTally offers comprehensive support for both barcoding and RFID, making it easy to integrate these solutions into your existing workflow. With our system in place, you can maintain a clear overview of your assets and optimize your management practices.
3. Schedule Regular Audits
Regularly audit your assets to maintain the accuracy and currency of your asset records. By conducting these audits, you can identify discrepancies, ensure compliance, and enhance the overall management of your assets.
Our comprehensive audit and compliance features empower organizations to maintain detailed records of asset usage, maintenance, and lifecycle.
You can set detailed audit schedules, assign responsibilities, and track completed audits to stay compliant with internal policies and external regulations like ISO standards.
4. Automate Compliance Checks
Automate compliance checks to maintain legal standards and industry reputation. Here’s how to go about it:
- List all relevant standards and regulations for your assets.
- Use enterprise asset management software to continuously check assets against these standards, and integrate it with existing systems.
- Configure alerts for compliance issues for timely attention
- Stay informed of regulatory changes and adjust checks for ongoing compliance.
By following these steps, you can minimize human errors and streamline the process which ensures your assets meet necessary standards.
5. Optimize Stock Levels
Regularly monitor inventory to prevent over-purchasing (which ties up valuable resources and space) or understocking (leading to missed sales opportunities).
To keep track of inventory stock levels:
- Record all assets, noting their locations, conditions, and user assignments for a complete overview.
- Use EAM software to track inventory in real-time, automating alerts for low or excess stock.
- Define minimum and maximum levels for each item to guide purchasing and avoid overstock or stockouts.
- Verify inventory through physical counts regularly to identify and correct discrepancies.
- Use sales data to adjust stock levels based on demand.
- Track expiration dates to make sure that products are sold before they spoil.
At BlueTally, we not only manage individual assets but also keep track of inventory stock levels, including hardware, licenses, and consumables. Our comprehensive system ensures that you know exactly how many items are in stock and available for checkout.
By streamlining the check-in/check-out process, we make it easy to assign items to employees and maintain an accurate count of inventory, whether in stock or under repair.
6. Manage Contracts and Licenses
Consistently monitor contract and license renewals to prevent any lapses that could disrupt operations. Here’s how:
- Compile a list of all contracts and licenses, including terms, renewal dates, and key stakeholders. Group them by type like leases, service agreements, and software licenses.
- Conduct monthly reviews of renewals and quarterly audits to keep all the records up-to-date and accurate.
- Evaluate contracts against terms to identify any issues, and collect stakeholder feedback on how effective the service is.
- Create procedures for renewals, assign responsibility, and develop negotiation strategies for potential changes in terms or pricing.
We manage contracts and licenses by sending automatic reminders for upcoming renewals and expirations, ensuring you never miss a contractual deadline and can address any potential issues ahead of time.
Best Practices for Enterprise Asset Management
Document Asset Information
Always document asset information thoroughly, including details like the purchase date, current location, and user assignment. Keep track of these elements so that you have seamless asset management and accountability.
BlueTally, simplifies asset documentation by letting you store and access asset information, maintaining organized records and quick retrieval whenever needed.
Schedule Regular Maintenance
Schedule regular maintenance to extend the life of your valuable assets and ensure they continue to operate efficiently. Consistent upkeep can prevent costly repairs and downtime in the future.
Use BlueTally to easily set maintenance schedules and log activities, which can help you keep track of all maintenance tasks and ensure that nothing goes overlooked. This helps in maintaining the optimal performance and longevity of your assets.
For example, a logistics company using our tool for its fleet can schedule regular vehicle maintenance checks based on mileage or time intervals. This would ensure that each vehicle receives timely attention, reducing the chances of breakdowns and maintaining optimal fleet performance.
Train Your Employees
Ensure that all your employees understand the importance of asset management and are familiar with using the enterprise asset management (EAM) system.
Asset management is crucial for tracking and maintaining company assets, and gets easier when teams across your organization are well-versed in its procedures.
By investing time in training, your employees will learn how to manage resources better, contribute to your organization's success, and maintain the longevity and effective use of assets.
Use Data Analytics
Leverage data analytics to gain valuable insights into asset performance and make data-driven decisions. By analyzing trends, patterns, and anomalies in the data, you can optimize current operations and anticipate future needs.
Our reporting features offer tools like real-time dashboards, customizable reports, and data export options to effectively gather, visualize, and interpret asset data.
This further streamlines inventory tracking, identifies cost-saving opportunities, and improves asset lifecycle management.
Stay Updated
Keep your EAM software updated with the latest features and integrations to ensure optimal performance and efficiency.
Reliable EAM software regularly update their platform to include new functionalities and integrations, so that you can leverage cutting-edge technology and streamline your asset management processes.
Staying current with these updates can enhance your system's capabilities, providing you with more tools to manage and track your assets better.
Optimize Enterprise Asset Management with BlueTally
Enterprise asset management is at the heart of running a successful organization. At BlueTally, we stand out as a versatile EAM platform, offering features like real-time tracking, seamless integrations, and automated compliance checks.
Ready to take your enterprise asset management to the next level?
