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EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS ASSET TRACKING

With RFID technology, elaborate and expensive check out/in and counting by hand is no longer necessary.

On any regular day, professionals at educational institutions have more than enough work to keep them busy. Administrators must manage budgets and financial goals, outline policies and procedures, and help set up educational missions and standards. Teachers, in addition to educating students in the classroom, must also grade papers and exams, keep their classroom supplies stocked, and prepare for future lessons and meetings.

Unfortunately, all of these tasks and more means leadership at most K-12 and higher education establishments are too busy to properly keep track of one of a school’s most important concerns: its assets.

Every year, educational institutions lose thousands to millions of dollars per establishment simply because they are not accurately tracking and measuring their assets, such as classroom supplies, computers, and sports and music equipment. In fact, estimates from lost and “ghost” (a.k.a. missing) assets can go as high as $250,000 a year per school district1. Numbers like this can not only put a financial strain on individual schools, but also on the people who have a vested interest in the success of those schools. 

The monetary issues which arise from improper asset tracking in educational institutions gets even more complicated when non-physical assets are added to the equation. This is because school inventory isn’t just limited to items like furniture and computers; assets can also include petty cash funds, student activity funds, and even cash and investment accounts. If any of these types of assets aren’t effectively tracked, educational institutions can lose up to millions of dollars a year, on top of losses already incurred from physical assets.

Educational institutions whose asset management systems don’t keep track of who deals with assets on a regular basis must handle a lot of unnecessary headaches when something goes wrong. Without accountability, schools won’t easily be able to know who was responsible when an asset goes missing, when they could instead simply look up that asset’s history in the system.

The following issues could easily be rectified with a robust asset tracking system in place at educational institutions:
  • Without software to track and manage assets, schools, colleges, and universities are only left with the option of manually recording and handling inventory using spreadsheets or even regular text documents. Unfortunately, manual asset tracking results in a decrease in both productivity and efficiency across the entire establishment.
  • Manually entering and tracking assets uses up lots of time, as does doing audits by hand instead of automating them with asset software. Such time could be saved and put to better use in advancing the laboratory institution’s goals and needs if employees were freed up from manual asset management.
  • Both decreased productivity and cost increases can combine to create the additional issue of operational setbacks. For example, any error in manual tracking can lead to confusion about who last touched or used a particular asset, which can then lead to the asset going missing entirely. Labs must then figure out how to make do without that asset until it’s replaced (if it ever is).
  • One of the biggest issues which arises for schools without reliable asset management technology is a lack of accountability. Without asset tracking software that can easily be updated and accessed across the entire institution’s leadership and staff, how are any of them to know who was last in charge of or touched each asset?

All these problems don’t need to plague laboratories and universities with doubt and worry. In fact, the solution to avoiding all of them is simple, and yet many labs haven’t implemented it or even considered it before: asset tracking and management software.

SmartX HUB Platform is a robust, flexible, and cloud-based asset tracking tool with a matching mobile app that can help lab institutions alleviate their concerns in a variety of ways.

Keeping everything in a centralized database accessible by as many users as needed

SmartX HUB EAM system for test and measurement equipment offers a simple, automated system to address these challenges. The system quickly and accurately accounts for checked-out equipment by not only reading all the tagged equipment placed on the checkout counter but also allowing for additional details to be provided at the time of checking out. Additional details could include project and experiment-related information. The Check-in process is similarly automated.

By using our centralized RFID Asset equipment tracking software system that provides access via mobile device, Educational Institutions can:

Saving money and bypassing budget issues

When schools have an asset management system in place that’s not manual, it will help save money in a variety of ways, including paying employees for multiple hours of manual tracking as well as helping to keep the budget predictable and steady.

Tracking down stolen, lost, or missing assets

It can be impossible to find assets which have been lost, stolen, or are simply missing (known as ghost assets). With robust asset software, educational institutions can track these items down and ensure they’re accounted for within the database.

Enforcing accountability for anyone who touches assets

Many times, manual asset tracking means someone forgets to mark down who last used or touched an asset, which means that person can’t be held accountable should something go wrong. This situation is significantly reduced when everyone is required to properly track and record their asset usage in the asset tracking system.

Reducing auditing time and improving accuracy in audits

Instead of having to manually run numbers and go through an asset spreadsheet system come auditing time, educational institutions can rest assured a more thorough asset tracking platform will have reports ready on-hand to help reduce auditing time and provide better accuracy in the results than a manual system might.

Avoiding purchasing unnecessary items like duplicate printers or classroom supplies

In many cases, K-12 schools and colleges will buy unnecessary extra supplies because their manual asset tracking systems can’t show them it was already purchased. This risk is eliminated when using a powerful, cloud-based platform.

Integrating with the school’s IT help desk

Educational institutions often employ one to many IT and computer technicians to help keep computers running smoothly, but they often do so using a system separate from the institutions’ asset management program. An asset tracking platform which can integrate with this computer maintenance system, however, can streamline communications and maintenance needs across the entire campus.
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Improving asset security

Save time and labor through automation

Instead of having to manually run numbers and go through an asset spreadsheet system come auditing time, laboratories institutions can rest assured a more thorough asset tracking platform will have reports ready on-hand to help reduce auditing time and provide better accuracy in the results than a manual system might.
Gain item-level data about every asset to ensure important tools and equipment don’t get lost, misplaced, or stolen. By keeping up-to-date on your tools' whereabouts, you can reduce overall inventory levels while ensuring adequate supplies across all locations.
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Get the tools you need, when and where needed

With the software, you can exactly know where your assets are kept. It also lets you know the exact location of an asset. It saves assets from theft and misplacement.
A lot of time is wasted on employees as they keep on looking for the asset when asset misplacement occurs. As a result, delay in operation occurs, and productivity decreases. Ensure compliance with maintenance schedules and product recalls with visibility into an asset's inventory, location, and history. Enable teams with the tools and assets needed when and where there is demand. Reduce frustration across the team by enabling them to perform work efficiently.
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Benefits

Accurate Inventory

Maintenance work efficiently

Reducing auditing time

Automatically locate assets

Extend the life of your assets

Enforcing accountability

How can we help you?

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Let us know how we can help you solve your business challenges!

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