Organizations spend millions of dollars on test and measurement equipment in labs and manufacturing. Regardless of which type of lab it is –  Electronics, Schools, Universities, Pharmaceutical, Biomedical or any other engineering or scientific lab or which type of manufacturing  Industrial or Clean rooms, issues of equipment traceability remains the same. 

Every year, these institutions lose thousands to millions of dollars per establishment simply because they are not accurately tracking and measuring their assets, such as as supplies, computers, and high-value lab equipment.

Well run organizations have a pool of equipment that can be used by multiple departments or divisions. Further, they want to leverage high value capital equipment across organizations, even though they might reside in a specific area. Equipment managers, with their myriad of responsibilities, face challenges tracking the lending out of equipment. 

Honor systems where the borrower details what is being borrowed including the type of equipment and its serial number have good intentions but often fail in execution. Few organizations can afford to have someone manually check-in and check-out equipment.

Even manual systems with an actual human managing the process are not foolproof because engineers and scientists are often borrowing equipment after hours or on the weekend.as supplies, computers, and high-value lab equipment.

In addition to financial concerns, a plethora of other issues arise when companies don’t maintain solid records of their assets. The following issues could easily be rectified with a robust asset tracking system in place at educational institutions: