For the majority of site supervisors and enterprises, handling industrial machinery across numerous worksites and facilities is difficult. Heavy equipment, hand tools, vehicles, IT hardware, and personnel are examples of typical assets.
It’s challenging to monitor all your assets while also determining their worth. But using equipment management software helps streamline the procedure. It helps you gain an overall overview of your assets. Here’s how.
10 ways in which equipment management software provides a comprehensive asset overview
Equipment management systems are crucial for construction activities with numerous assets because they improve compliance, security, and real-time surveillance and tracking. Let’s go through 10 ways through which you can get a complete overview of your assets through such software.
1.Manage all assets like equipment and power tools via a single system
By controlling your whole fleet inside a single system, you eliminate outdated workflows via Spreadsheets and boost productivity. You can keep information including equipment specifications, locations, and purchase data only a swipe away.
Utilize a straightforward and efficient equipment management solution for your fleet’s small equipment and power tools to effectively monitor the assets that your business relies on. Receive full access to an inspection record of your utilization.
2.Improve your knowledge of asset lifecycle management
Knowing exactly what materials and equipment you possess and their costs is a necessary component of overseeing your heavy machinery. It’s crucial to understand when these resources need to be replaced and when they require regular upkeep.
You can determine the entire serviceability of all your assets — allowing your company to budget ahead and buy new equipment as needed.
3.Acquire information on your asset profiles
Equipment management software gives you and your construction site workers complete details about all your asset profiles such as the model, supplier, registration number, usage, location, etc. Additional details like asset manuals, insurance, and guarantee paperwork, among other documents, are securely stored centrally and are fully searchable.
Here’s a list of asset profile specifications you can gather via equipment management software:
- Machinery document generation and real-time cooperation (e.g., parts lists).
- Electronic forms (such as pre-shift inspection paperwork, service hours logs, repair checklists, summaries, etc.) that staff members may fill out on their mobile devices and tablets while out in the workplace.
- Support for the integration of multimedia (such as images of manufacturing or equipment flaws) into electronically submitted forms.
4.Monitor your assets
Equipment management software offers multiple surveillance services such as:
- Monitoring gear activity and status with multiple sensors.
- Using scanners, QR codes, Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID) tags, etc., to track the position and accessibility of equipment.
- Tracking of equipment depreciation.
- Tracking of the usage of equipment.
- Monitoring of logs for the check-in or check-out of gear.
- Alerts a manager or a machine operator about faults (such as part relocation, failure, corrosion, or contamination) or other problems (such as unauthorized equipment use).
5.Forecast and analyze
Using Artificial Intelligence (AI), you can identify real-time equipment data, such as uptime/downtime, mobility, temperature, and anomalous patterns. Other benefits include – estimating breakdowns and the projected failure time caused by corrosiveness, heat, misaligned loads, and other variables.
You may use historical data for underlying cause investigation of equipment-related problems (downtime, failure, overheating, etc.). What-if assessment forecasts how the equipment would behave in reaction to operator input and external factors (load change, operational issues, etc.). estimating resource usage in relation to production costs and other factors.
Ways in which AI-based software help in planning and optimization of your assets
- Reporting templates for totally productive hours, fully-compiled gear, maintenance history, failures, produced goods, losses, production expenses, depreciation charges, etc.
- Role-based reports that can be customized for technicians, managers, etc.
- Real-time equipment tracking dashboards.
- Historical data recording on equipment.
- Using asset life cycle expense analysis and asset criticality – to plan investments and purchase new equipment.
- Considering the equipment’s use, health, and significance, among other factors, while determining and scheduling its upgrade, substitution, or elimination.
- Optimization of the equipment maintenance plan, based on expected equipment failures.
- Production of routine or urgent work orders for machinery or its components that need repair or replacement.
- Prioritization of service orders depending on the condition, criticality, and other factors of the equipment.
- Setting priorities for equipment safety responsibilities and distributing them to the appropriate staff.
- Tracking of work orders and warranty administration.
- Keeping a record of all machinery purchases’ warranty coverage.
- Automated warnings when a warranty contract is close to expiring.
- Whenever a work order is prepared, warranty fixes are noted.
- Recording the number of work hours used to fix or replace products covered by warranties.
6.Make your physical assets more visible
A major construction project will require the transportation of hundreds or possibly thousands of items from and to distinct places. An asset ledger is helpful in this situation.
Use an equipment management system’s tools to create an asset registry. You may gather all kinds of information about your resources at outlets in a single location, thanks to this technology.
In light of this, equipment management software can assist in giving a constant view of the location of equipment. Additionally, phantom asset elimination can save companies money on insurance premiums and tax obligations.
Both transportation and requisitions for purchase orders can be supported by equipment management solutions – enabling you to assign resources to the appropriate place and deploy them as needed.
Numerous users will be able to utilize a reliable network. This implies that your on-site project managers can note difficulties if devices or machinery must be repaired, or ask that items be gathered if they’re no longer required.
7.Work together as a safe team
To keep everyone informed, post photographs, papers, and tag teammates in discussions. It makes it simple for everybody to access a connection point for your equipment if you’ve unlimited users.
Additionally, worksite workers are allegedly killed or maimed annually as a consequence of their tasks, according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). According to the HSE, electrical and mobile plant incidents are two of the most common reasons for accidental injury and death.
Construction workers face serious safety risks when equipment malfunctions. Your business organization can avoid occupation-related worker injuries by efficiently overseeing and maintaining plant and mechanical assets. When an asset reaches the conclusion of its usefulness, withdraw it from service.
Safety and adherence benefits of equipment management software:
- Hardware data encryption
- Multiple-factor identification
- access dependent on permissions
- Document trail
- Data archiving
- Regulation observance
8.Reduce the likelihood of asset theft
Petty theft and criminal organizations frequently target the construction sector. According to a poll by the Chartered Institute of Buildings, 21% of participants report thefts per week.
Construction projects are being increasingly exploited by criminals; most of them are professional gangs, according to Allianz Insurance. The findings show that plant thievery is increasing year over year. Specifically, in the US, 730 were reported by the conclusion of 2021.
Small resources are frequently the focus of theft since they’re portable. However, larger and more expensive assets also face danger. The solutions provided by security asset management software can be used to enhance the safety of construction assets to decrease the likelihood of losses and theft.
Additionally, you can identify where assets are stored or who last utilized them by employing tags, which help detect industrial machinery in real time – lowering the amount lost in assets.
9.Effectively control schedules for asset maintenance
A construction business needs to make sure that certain crucial resources, including buildings, equipment, and devices, are operating efficiently in order to remain profitable. For instance, a bulldozer is a costly piece of equipment. If it’s not working, construction could be considerably delayed, adding to delays in delivery dates and an increase in expenses.
You can schedule preventative maintenance via equipment management software that includes a maintenance feature. This lessens the possibility of needing urgent and unforeseen repairs.
You can delegate tasks to several technicians using a maintenance plan. Each expert will be able to make observations about the job they have done and log those remarks onto a common dashboard.
10.Get the necessary certifications for your assets
ISO 55001 is a global set of equipment management guidelines. The goal of ISO 55001 is to support resource managers in maximizing the use of their resources – to lower total ownership costs while still maintaining safety and performance standards.
Your construction businesses may maximize the worth of your investments and optimize asset risk, price, and efficiency, thanks to ISO 55001. Its policy, strategy, goal, plan, and execution of asset management are just a few of the interconnected components, which it pulls together.
Be capable of demonstrating that equipment management is done to the necessary standard in order to obtain ISO 55001 certification. By providing you with an organized, correct route to equipment management, the appropriate software can assist you in accomplishing this.
Bonus tips
We recommend that you combine equipment management software with:
- Process improvement and asset management operations, like planning and buying new equipment, can be streamlined with ERP.
- Production systems (PLC, HMI, SCADA, MES, etc.) – to consolidate and evaluate equipment functionality and condition data, including information about anomalies (such as overheating, and unanticipated stops) supplied by different manufacturing systems through sensors, scanners, and RFID tags.
- Employing chat sessions and voice conferencing, communication solutions (like Microsoft Teams or Slack) can help a maintenance crew collaborate on work orders within equipment management platforms and break down communication silos.
To manage your assets, find the ideal equipment management software
Numerous software systems are available on the market that can be utilized to manage your construction equipment. Therefore, it’s essential to carefully evaluate your business needs before choosing which system to utilize.
Obtaining support from management, important stakeholders, and staff is a necessary step of this process. For the asset management process to be successful, all required staff members must be aware of their roles and duties.
You’ll have to collaborate closely not only with the on-site contractors but also with additional departments like finance. For example, the software will be used by the finance team to handle budgeting, forecasting, and sales orders.
Ensure your chosen equipment management software satisfies your business requirements after receiving organizational approval. Not only today but also in the long term when you build your company for expansion.