The fixed asset challenge

There is now a greater understanding across organizations of the value of accurate asset registers – and the potential business cost of today’s endemic inaccuracy. With upwards of 50% of assets on most registers no longer in use, organizations recognize they are in danger of over-paying insurance premiums, creating mismatched disaster recovery plans and even creating inaccurate company valuations.

Furthermore, compliance to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) demands fixed asset management accountability and the provision of a full audit trail. With IFRS becoming increasingly prevalent within the public sector, the spotlight is now on the widespread poor asset management processes that have resulted in these highly inaccurate asset registers.

From highly mobile items such as laptops that cannot be accurately located, to heavy machinery composed of multiple component parts that are frequently changed by maintenance without being recorded, organizations simply have no idea what happens to assets once in use.

But how many businesses can afford to periodically interrupt production to undertake a manual audit? Taking manufacturing processes offline or disrupting operations is just not a viable option for most businesses. Furthermore, manual audits can be notoriously inaccurate; horror stories abound of organizations that have embarked upon manual audits only to discover that many months into the exercise only 60% of assets have been checked.

Indeed, even those organizations that have adopted barcodes in a bid to impose greater control and visibility over their asset base still struggle to gain access to certain parts of the infrastructure – from production lines to clean environments, such as hospital operating theatres.

The ability to use RFID technology to scan hundreds of assets at once, from a single point, while ensuring business continuity has the potential to transform the entire asset management process.