Asset management is a critical activity for any organization that relies on assets, both digital and physical, to conduct its business. From the smallest detail of customer to manufacturing equipment to fleets of vehicles to facilities and real estate, companies invest heavily in acquiring and maintaining these assets. Without vigilant asset management, these assets can become strained, underutilized, and costly over their lifecycles. However, with the right systems and strategies in place, businesses can optimize their asset management to reduce expenses, improve productivity, and make the most of their capital investments.
In today’s digital environment, advanced software has become an invaluable tool for asset management. Transitioning from manual tracking methods to automated asset management systems provides organizations with greater visibility and control over their assets. Asset management platform enables users to catalog asset inventories, create maintenance schedules, monitor asset conditions and usage, optimize workflows, and analyze asset performance. With real-time data and insights, businesses can make smarter decisions to improve availability, utilization, and total cost of ownership of their assets.
The asset management software market has expanded rapidly in recent years, with solutions scaled for small to large enterprise needs. However, with many options now available, selecting the right system can feel overwhelming. This guide examines the key reasons businesses need asset management system, features to look for during evaluation, leading solutions, and best practices for implementation. With the right information and planning, companies can confidently choose and deploy asset management technology to maximize the lifetime value of their assets.
What is Asset Management Software?
Asset management software refers to specialized tools and systems designed to help organizations manage and optimize their assets. Assets are categorized into tangible and intangible items, which are owned by an organization that have long-term usability and value, such as:
- Customer data and other information
- Computer software and licenses
- Intellectual property
- Production and manufacturing equipment
- Vehicles and fleets
- Facilities and property
- IT hardware and other technology
- Heavy machinery and construction equipment
To maximize the lifetime value of these assets, organizations need solutions to systematically track, analyze, and manage them across their entire lifecycle – from acquisition to disposal. Asset management system provides an integrated set of capabilities to achieve this, including:
Centralized Asset Register
Asset management platform provides a centralized database to store complete details on every asset. This asset register acts as a single source of truth for attributes like asset name, ID, category, manufacturer, model specifications, location, department ownership, purchase date, warranty and service details, etc.
Maintenance Management
Robust tools are provided to schedule, assign, track, and record all preventive, recurring, and corrective maintenance. Pre-defined maintenance templates can be configured by asset type. Maintenance management ensures assets undergo servicing at optimal intervals to minimize downtime.
Utilization Monitoring
Asset management tools enable users to view utilization rates across assets to optimize allocation. Usage meters can track runtime hours, production output, or other metrics. Assets showing low utilization can be reallocated where needed.
Reporting & Analytics
Asset management system software centralizes asset data into dashboards and reports providing actionable insights. KPIs, lifecycle costs, utilization, and maintenance metrics can be analyzed to make data-driven decisions.
Resource Management
Spare parts, warranties, supplier contracts, operating manuals, and other asset-related documents can be stored and managed digitally. Some solutions integrate with inventory control systems.
Integration
Leading solutions can integrate and sync asset data bi-directionally with corporate systems like ERP, accounting, IWMS, building automation, HR, etc. This avoids siloed data across systems.
With these comprehensive capabilities, asset management tools enable organizations to maximize asset availability, utilization, productivity – while minimizing downtime, repairs, and total cost of ownership.
Enterprise Asset Management Software
A key subset of asset management solutions is enterprise asset management (EAM) software. Enterprise asset management (EAM) software is tailored for large, asset-intensive organizations. EAM platforms offer advanced capabilities for maintenance, inventory, procurement, capital planning, and analytics across distributed assets and locations. EAM solutions provide enterprise-level scalability, security, and data integration. For global or regulated businesses managing thousands of asset types, EAM software delivers the sophisticated tools needed for optimized asset productivity and compliance.
Why Businesses Need Asset Management Software
Asset management software provides a range of benefits that manual tracking methods or basic spreadsheets cannot deliver. Here are some of the key reasons businesses need to invest in dedicated asset management systems:
1. Enhanced Visibility and Control
Asset management software gives organizations real-time visibility into the status, location, and condition of all their assets. Centralized systems make it easy to access data and run reports to make informed decisions. Users can set alerts, workflows and rules to better control and optimize assets.
2. Improved Asset Utilization
Understanding asset utilization is key to maximizing return on investment. Asset management system software provides insights into usage and scheduling to improve asset allocation across the business. This allows assets to be reallocated when needed.
3. Lower Costs
With comprehensive maintenance workflows and preventative scheduling, costly downtime and repairs can be minimized. Software also helps determine when assets have become unproductive and should be retired or replaced.
4. Reduced Risk
Monitoring asset performance and conditions enables issues to be identified early before they cause failures. Software also improves regulatory compliance with assets like facilities and fleets.
5. Better Capital Planning
With software providing better asset visibility and lifecycle costs, businesses can plan their capital expenditures more strategically. This includes when to maintain, replace or buy new assets.
6. Scalability
Asset management solution scales to support businesses as their asset portfolio and needs evolve over time. Growing organizations don’t have to reinvent their tracking processes.
By transitioning to purpose-built asset management software, businesses can transform what is often a fragmented and reactive approach into one that is proactive, controlled, and aligned to wider business objectives. The right technology provides the foundation for maximizing assets over their entire lifecycle.
Key Features to Look for in Asset Management Software
With the wide range of asset management solutions available today, it’s essential to assess options based on the functionality that will bring the most value to your organization. Here are some of the top features and capabilities to look for:
Flexible Asset Organization – Robust asset performance management software allows assets to be grouped and structured in a hierarchy, such as by site, department, facility, production line, etc. Powerful filtering, sorting, and search makes it easy to access and report on subsets of assets. Custom fields should be configurable to capture specialized attributes.
Automated Maintenance Scheduling – Maintenance schedules can be configured based on elapsed time, meter readings, or other triggers to automate generation of routine maintenance work orders. This prevents missed PM activities leading to downtime.
Asset Lifecycle Tracking – Asset records should retain full history as assets move locations, have parts replaced, or get upgraded. Cost basis and depreciation can be tracked for accounting. Retirement/disposal dates close the loop on an asset’s complete lifecycle.
Advanced Reporting and Analytics – Dynamic charts, graphs, and custom reports provide actionable insights into asset and maintenance KPIs. Features like failure code analysis, maintenance cost forecasting, and custom visualizations aid data-driven decisions.
Lease and Warranty Tracking – Warranty expiry alerts ensure repairs get allocated under warranty coverage. Lease tracking triggers key lease events like renewals and returns to avoid penalties.
Spare Parts and Inventory Integration – Asset records can be linked with spare parts or inventory items needed for maintenance. Reserves optimize parts stocking while automation facilitates reordering.
These are just some key capabilities to evaluate during your software selection process. The right solution should flexibly accommodate your organization’s asset management processes without the need for extensive customization.
Choosing the Right Asset Management Software
With the range of solutions on the market, it’s important to consider key factors when selecting an asset management solution:
- Intended asset types – Some solutions specialize in certain assets like IT, facilities, fleet, or manufacturing.
- Scale needs – Cloud-based options for SMBs versus enterprise-level platforms.
- Ease of use – Platforms requiring extensive training hamper adoption.
- Integration – APIs and connectors to sync with existing corporate systems.
- Analytics – Robust reporting and dashboards for actionable insights.
- Company size and longevity – Evaluate stability and support capabilities.
Organizations must balance factors like upfront and ongoing costs, ease of use, integration needs, and scalability when selecting the right software. Trying free demos to experience the interface and workflow is advisable before purchasing. Current user reviews provide valuable unbiased insights. Allocating time for proper selection results in software that maximizes value and aligns to your asset processes over the long term.
Revnue offers an end-to-end solution covering asset management, maintenance, inventory, procurement, analytics, and more. Key strengths include flexible asset hierarchy construction, custom fields, integration capabilities and scalability from SMB to large enterprises – making it the best asset management software available in the market.
The Future of Asset Management Software
Asset management software is rapidly evolving as new technologies emerge and businesses seek even greater value from these solutions. Key trends shaping the future of asset management technology include:
1. Greater Intelligence and Insights
Asset management solutions are increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to provide more predictive capabilities. Machine learning applied to asset performance data can detect patterns, classify failures, and predict future issues to recommend proactive maintenance.
2. Deeper IOT Integration
IoT allows operational data from sensors, meters, and connected equipment to feed into asset management software in real-time. This enables tracking of asset health, condition, utilization, and location. Preventive maintenance can leverage live telemetry.
3. Broader Integration
API connectivity enables asset management data to sync with an expanding range of corporate systems – from ERP and billing to HR, inventory, facilities management and more. This breaks down silos and expands data use cases.
Blockchain integration also shows potential for shared yet trusted asset tracking across partner networks. Compliance-focused capabilities will continue expanding as regulations evolve. As technology advances, the strategic value delivered by asset management software to enterprises will only increase through capabilities that would not be possible with manual tracking.
Key Takeaway
As this guide has explored, implementing a purpose-built asset management software solution has become an imperative for most organizations in order to optimize their physical assets. Manual tracking and spreadsheet-based methods cannot provide the comprehensive capabilities required in modern asset-intensive operations.
Asset management software enables businesses to gain greater visibility into their assets with features like centralized registers, maintenance scheduling, and real-time monitoring. Leading solutions also provide robust analytics and reporting to transform asset data into actionable business insights.
With the market maturing, many scalable and configurable software options now exist to suit unique needs. Careful selection criteria based on aspects like ease of use, analytics, and integration capabilities can help businesses identify the ideal solution. The future points to even more intelligent systems leveraging IoT, AI, and expanded mobility.
While maximizing assets has always been crucial, asset management software provides unprecedented digital tools to accomplish this. As the strategic value of asset management technology continues rising, it becomes an indispensable software category for all asset-intensive enterprises.
