Lower your costs and increase your efficiency by knowing exactly where your assets are and where they have been.

If a mobile asset (e.g. roll cage, hospital bed, vending machine or fire extinguisher) is not where it is meant to be, where it is needed, when it is needed, or cannot be correctly identified, then additional costs and inefficiency result.

Management of mobile assets in most organisations is not considered a priority which can lead to many issues including:

• High levels of loss: an annual loss of 10% of total asset numbers is not untypical
  
• Production line downtime due to non-availability of assembly parts
  
• Supplier hoarding in the run up to and during seasonal peaks resulting in missed deliveries
  
• Disruption of the supply chain resulting in lost sales all round
  
• Suppliers without the correct re-usable assets reverting to single trip packaging causing additional packaging costs, more product damage and increased cost of waste management
  
• New re-usable assets have to be bought to fill requirement gaps
• Reduced asset life
  
• Inefficient use of field engineers' time
• Time wasted trying to find assets
• Poor maintenance management resulting in cost of unnecessary servicing or, worse, failure of the asset
• Potential for being in breach of regulations or insurers' terms and conditions.

Using a combination of GS1 identification keys with bar codes or RFID tags you will always know where your assets are and have an audit trail of their journey.

Asset Tracking in Food & Produce, Grocery and Logistics

• If your business has ever suffered downtime because reusable assets, like roll cages, trays, pallets or crates, are not where they’re supposed to be, you’ll understand the need for asset tracking. For industries like retail and food, assets not being in the right place at the right time can mean lost sales.
• Tracking your assets can help:
  • reduce production downtime when raw materials or assembly parts are not available
  • prevent lost sales when suppliers hoard assets in the run-up to and during seasonal peaks
  • stop assets going missing: Forrester says 25% of companies lose 10% of their container fleet every year because of theft, damage and misplacement
  • prevent unnecessary packaging costs by switching from expensive single-trip packaging that’s easily damaged
  • lower costs: you only need to buy new assets when you need them as you always know how many assets you have and where they are
  • increase efficiency by always having the right assets available at the right time – and in the right place

Asset Tracking in Healthcare

• If your hospital has ever suffered downtime because reusable assets, like surgical instruments, trays, beds and wheelchairs, are not where they’re supposed to be, you’ll understand the need for asset tracking.
• Within healthcare, where nurses spend quarter of their time looking for things*, being unable to find surgical instruments or medical devices can mean the difference between life or death.
• Tracking your assets can help: 
  • stop assets going missing
  • prevent unnecessary costs
  • lower costs: you only need to buy new assets when you need them as you always know how many assets you have and where they are
  • increase efficiency by always having the right assets available at the right time – and in the right place

• If you think asset tracking would benefit your hosiptal, get in touch.

• *GS1 UK survey 2009 in conjunction with The Nursing Times Survey

Want to know more about asset tracking? Find out how our implementation and advisory services team can help you