Tracking Portable Equipment

Keeping track of organisations assets within an office or school environment can be difficult for a number of reasons. However, this issue is especially a problem with equipment and goods that are portable. Whether it is cameras, laptops or phones, keeping track of equipment that has been loaned or hired out to a student and staff member can seem almost impossible.

This is made worse not only by the amount of equipment needed in many organisations but the confusion and issues that come with the use of similar, personal equipment brought in by students or staff members.

So, how can you solve the problem of effectively tracking portable equipment in your organisation?

Keeping your assets safe with an effective tracking system

 With assets moving here, there and everywhere, having a manual inventory is not always the quickest and most effective way to track your equipment. Instead, you need something that allows you to combine physical labelling with computer and tablet tracking.

This is the most effective way to track portable equipment, as everything can be stored on a computer system, without the hassle of unreliable paper inventories.

How can you do this?

The easiest way to implement a fast track system such as this is with miniature asset tracking labels. Miniature tracking labels are small and discreet, meaning they can fit onto the smallest of assets and make tracking portable equipment quick and easy.

They work with your computer and laptop because they can contain serial numbers and barcodes, giving you ultimate control. You can use barcodes to log when equipment has been taken out and from what area, helping you to quickly resolve any problems that may arise.

Not only can asset labelling help you with tracking portable equipment that is on loan or missing, these little tags are also a great way to deter thieves and help you reclaim stolen equipment more easily.

The data, such as your barcode or serial number, is engraved onto each label, meaning it is resistant to chemical substances. These nifty little asset tags also break into tiny pieces if forced removal is attempted, making it impossible to remove all of the tag completely. This means that if equipment has been stolen, it can easily be identified by police and returned back to you without unnecessary hassle.

Whether you are worried about stolen equipment or simply need to ensure your loaned equipment is returned when it should be, you can save time and money using a unique asset labelling system.

Use Asset Tracking with Asset Labels

It can be highly irritating to lose company equipment at any time and expensive too.

In cases where the assets are essential to the continuing running of your business’s operations, the impact can extend to quickly outweighing the costs of replacement.

More frustration can come when it becomes hard to track how the loss occurred and what prospects there are for the original assets recovery.

While you may never be able to fully prevents items going missing there are steps you can take to reduce this from happening and in the cases were it does happen have a system that both aids your understand of how the loss occurred and improves your chances of item recovery.

Using asset tracking can do all this and that’s why many people have decided to undergo better asset tracking with asset labels to make sure they know exactly where their equipment and assets are.

The Uses of Asset Labels

When an item goes missing that’s more or less the scope of it. Unless it somehow shows up again having been accidentally taken home by an employee or returned after it had been stolen, then there’s not a lot the company can do to track it down again. Likewise if it’s damaged in a fire or accident. It is quite simply lost.

The easiest way to ensure that this does not occur is, of course, to keep careful track of where your equipment and who is responsible for it.

In the absence of more sophisticated methods, such as proximity alarms or GPS tracking, the most efficient is to carefully catalogue each item, where it is and who is responsible for it.

By giving your company assets a visible and permanent marking like an asset label, you can in addition demonstrably verify that an item is most certainly yours. Many also come with individual serial numbers and markers, which also allow each item to be clearly distinguished from each other. 

This is great if you buy equipment in bulk that then goes out on loan either internally or externally.

Asset Tracking System

While asset labels on their own can show item ownership the real powers comes when they are linked to an asset tracking system. Easy to create an asset tracking system can be used to note down information about each asset and in its simplest for can be a spreadsheet.

This has all sorts of value including:

·         Tracking item location

·         Tracking value, condition and lifetime cost to the company

·         Tracking responsibility

This makes tracking down individual items much, much easier than they would have been otherwise. It also provides a physical history of where the asset has been, helping you to retrace it to its last known location.

As you can imagine systems like this are very popular with insurers!

Easier Administration

Having unique numbers and codes also makes administration of items easier in general.

If you can afford it, setting up an electronic logging system can make the recording of items in your company inventory quick and painless. This is not only time efficient, but more secure than physical copies too. In the event that a log book or similar is lost, electronic tracking allows for a digital copy to be kept and backed up on company computers instead.

Theft Protection

Having your company assets marked with a tracking label also provides something of a deterrent for thieves. This is not the same as immunity, of course. Simply that anyone looking to steal the item will now know that it’s capable of being tracked, as well as physically marked as belonging to a company.

While it doesn’t mean much if it was stolen for the thief’s own use, it does make resale difficult if not impossible and can often aid recovery.

It’s worth investing in asset tracking using asset labels as in the long run it will improve how you use and manage your assets plus save you money.