Human vs. Machine: The 5 Advantages of Automated Asset Tracking

Asset tracking is an integral part of operating a business. Without knowing where your assets are and how they’re being used, you cannot properly address your customers' needs and maintain your business’s standing. Traditionally, asset tracking is maintained through manual entry spreadsheets and tedious filing systems. However, as technology evolves, new and more advantageous opportunities are provided in automated asset tracking.

What is Automated Asset Tracking?

Asset tracking refers to the process of maintaining location, usage, and/or other relevant information about company inventory, equipment, and/or personnel. This can be completed either manually or through an automated process. Manually, asset tracking often looks like maintaining spreadsheets, entering information into databases, or scanning individual barcode IDs by hand.

Automated asset tracking is a form of asset tracking that, once properly set up, does not require human intervention to maintain and update asset condition or location data. Rather, the process is completed via data transmission and other forms of machine-to-machine communication.

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Advantages of an Automated Asset Tracking System

Reduce Human Error

The core benefit of automation is its ability to reduce the potential for human error. As long as an automated system is set up correctly and consistently updated, it should make fewer mistakes than a human would. In relation to asset tracking, an automated system is less likely to record location or overlook a crucial asset improperly.

Improve Organization 

An automated asset tracking system improves organization in manufacturing plants. Asset tracking solutions are united across one system, meaning that all resulting information is uploaded to the same place in the same format. While it is not impossible to create a single database through manual efforts – shared spreadsheets are a fine example – it is a lot more time-consuming, and again, leaves more potential for human error. With all data in the same place, you save time on decision-making processes since you don’t have to spend time collecting and organizing data. 

Ensure Compliance

Building from improved organization; automated asset tracking solutions make it easier for companies to ensure compliance. Not only is it easier to find and access the relevant information when it's requested, but some systems have the option to generate real-time or historical compliance reports. Additionally, the improved organization makes it easier for companies to know when they’re not in compliance, allowing them to address the problem when it arises rather than being fined somewhere down the road.

Visualize Usage Trends

Automated asset tracking systems also enable clean visualization of usage trends for tools and equipment. As with reducing the potential for human error, as long as automated systems are properly set up and maintained, they are far quicker at analyzing and providing data visuals than humans. Asset tracking solutions even provide you insight into any bottlenecks in your production process. This data provides operators with information on tool and equipment usage, helping to make spending and maintenance decisions in a fraction of the time it would have taken them to compile, analyze, and visualize the data themselves.

Save Time and Money

All these advantages lead to the overarching advantage of automated asset tracking; when used effectively, it saves companies both time and money. Human error often requires time to be remedied. Creating a unified organizational system is similarly time-consuming, and having separate systems of documentation results in time spent searching for relevant information or equipment. Lost or misplaced equipment results in extra unnecessary replacement costs. Having an automated system in place tells you where the lost equipment is so you don’t have to pay to replace it.

Not being in compliance can result in fines and increased maintenance costs. Similarly, not being aware of usage trends can result in operators spending money because of lost or misplaced assets. The crux of the matter is that automated asset tracking systems not only make it easier to locate a company’s assets but also result in a number of other time- and money-saving benefits. There’s value in what automated technology offers, and the investment can help you stand out in the long run.

Benefit from an Asset Tracking Solution with Link Labs

Link Labs offers an asset tracking solution, AirFinder, that can automate your manufacturing process. Between optimizing the process and relieving your workload by taking care of all the data. 

AirFinder is a sustainable way to save companies time and money. Book a demo today to learn more about our offerings and the advantages of an asset tracking system.