High-value asset management and protection is one of the biggest challenges businesses grapple with every day. In the past, asset management revolved around keeping a manual inventory, with tracking being an afterthought. Understandably, before the rapid evolution of tracking technologies, businesses relied on these outdated methods to oversee assets.

In today’s competitive market, keeping a manual inventory of your assets is more impractical and riskier than ever. GPS asset tracking has quickly become a must-have for businesses that count on vehicles and equipment to keep their team moving. Without it, there are a number of challenges you may run into when optimizing your operations and asset management.

What are Common Challenges of Asset Visibility and Optimization?

Every business strives to increase operational efficiency, cut costs, and minimize asset downtime and maintenance. To achieve this, they must implement a modern system to manage and optimize its assets. However, any system without asset tracking solutions face various challenges, including:

• Lack of Visibility
• Wasted Time
• Easily Move & Maintain Assets
• Safety and Security Risks
• Understanding Asset Costs
• Outdated Systems and Technology

Let’s dive in. Starting with maybe more of the obvious: 

1. Lack of Visibility

Without effective visibility, asset management is like playing a game of darts in the dark. Constant visibility is key to keeping your assets in the right places at the right times. 

Lack of visibility makes it nearly impossible to know exactly what assets you have, where they are, and whether they’re functioning correctly.  Smaller and more portable assets are more likely to get lost or easily misplaced when they are not tracked properly.

It’s extremely difficult to optimize your asset management if can’t see where every asset is, where it’s been, and where it’s going.

2. Wasted Time

When you have to make a call or send a text every time you need to know exactly where an asset is, the time builds up. Updating asset information manually can take hours; even when it’s done, you may still need to update ERPs and tracking systems. 

Coordinating the use of assets demands proper planning and streamlined communication to ensure assets are used efficiently. Manual data entry not only demands more human resources and longer communication times but will ultimately cost more in inefficiencies such as more fuel consumption on inefficient routes. Without real-time data and insights, asset management is inefficient and expensive. 

3. Easily Move & Maintain Assets

Being able to easily move assets around could be crucial for your business. Ensuring your assets are at peak working conditions is one thing, and keeping proper records of assets and planning when and where you’ll use them is another. How can you easily move assets or utilize them if you don’t know where they’re at or what their condition is? 

Asset downtime can be extremely costly for a business that has invested heavily in assets or equipment. When equipment is unavailable or not in good working condition, it costs more to restore, repair, or service it. It also costs the company more in delayed timelines, frustrated employees, and dissatisfied customers.

While implementing asset management and optimization, a business must strive to minimize downtime by maximizing asset visibility. The high costs of maintenance downtime can be mitigated with regular inspections, scheduled servicing, and keeping track of asset performance and status. 

4. Safety and Security Risks

A major part of asset management is keeping your property safe - both in protecting them from theft and ensuring they are maintained in a condition that makes them safe to use. Regular asset monitoring and keeping track of assets is a sure way to prevent theft, accidents, and their use in unauthorized activities.

The right place to start in order to keep assets safe is by analyzing potential risks. Risk analysis may include documenting the assets and mapping out their potential threats and vulnerabilities. The right system to track these threats should also mitigate the risks for different types of assets.

5. Understanding Asset Costs

It costs money to acquire, maintain, and even use an asset. Unfortunately, most asset management and optimization systems fail to account for the costs associated with asset management itself. Failing to keep track of these costs often gives the business an incomplete picture of the overall costs they would need to make cost-effective decisions.

Asset management should be an all-encompassing process that factors in the initial cost of purchase, operations, funding, servicing and repair costs, costs of parts, and the final disposal price. For example, when it comes to fleet tracking, failing to keep records of fuel consumption, mileage, and wear and tear costs also hurts the company's ability to leverage the data to make the right optimization decisions. A comprehensive approach to asset cost management is critical to assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the asset. Ad another example, if you have 10 of one asset but only 8 are ever in use, you can sell 2 and better control the cost of assets based on usage. 

6. Outdated Systems and Technology

Many businesses still use outdated methods to track their assets. Using pen and paper inventory trackers, spreadsheets, and other manual systems still have the same problems they did decades ago: lack of asset tracking accuracy and visibility. Companies that use manual and outdated technologies spend more time, effort, and money than those that have updated their asset management systems.

The most notable downsides of outdated asset management systems are the lack of efficiency and transparency. In addition, these systems are labor-intensive, unreliable, and often demand constant iterations and re-checking due to unavoidable human errors. Ultimately, these systems fail the business, its employees, and its customers.

See how this construction company gained peace of mind and visibility with GPS technology. 

How an Asset Tracking System Can Help

Eliminating the reliance on manual processes such as pen and paper and spreadsheets is the first step to streamlining asset management and optimization. The benefits and opportunities of the right asset tracking system are clear, particularly when managing numerous, diverse, and mobile assets such as a fleet. The most notable benefits are:

• Complete Visibility
• Asset Safety and Protection
• Optimized Operations

Complete Visibility

Lack of transparency in asset management hurts a business in many ways. A system that offers round-the-clock visibility of assets empowers managers to easily and quickly determine how the business can fully utilize assets. It also goes a long way to preventing misuse and abuse of assets, promoting accountability, and minimizing downtime.

Tip: Find a GPS tracking system with a Mobile App like Spytec that shows all of your assets –and notifies you when something is out of place, so you can keep track, anytime and anywhere.

Asset Safety and Protection

The best asset management and optimization solutions incorporate safety and performance features. These features can help the business streamline asset management, transportation, security, and system-wide safety.

Asset inventory visibility goes a long way to improve its short-term and long-term safety benefits. For instance, an economic analysis by the Center For Transport Research and Education reveals that upgrading an asset management system can help significantly reduce downtimes and improve the asset benefit-cost ratio.

Tip: Find a GPS tracking system like Spytec that offers real-time visibility on all assets –so you can protect assets, move assets to where they need to be, and get notified if something moves when or where it shouldn’t. 

Optimized Operations

Asset management is much more than ensuring that an asset is still under business ownership; it also involves ensuring that assets are fully utilized effectively to benefit the business, its employees, and its customers. Optimizing an asset involves ensuring its optimum efficiency at all times, lower total lifecycle costs, and savings for the business. The right asset management system must also provide an appropriate corrective and proactive maintenance balance for all assets.

Tip: Find a GPS tracking system like Spytec that offers historical data so you always know what happened and when. Use this data to optimize routes, improve operations, train your team, and more. 

Final Thoughts

A business that struggles to maintain or optimize the use of its assets will find it hard to compete regardless of its industry. GPS asset tracking software is the key to overcoming the challenges of asset inventory visibility. Investing in the right asset tracking systems is a sure way to boost the productivity and efficiency of the equipment while minimizing costs for your business. 

From real-time visibility to maintenance reminders, GPS tracking is changing how businesses manage their assets. Interested in leveraging powerful asset tracking software for your business? Reach out to our team. We're happy to walk you through our easy-to-use app. Please reach out to us here.