Process Control for Hardware Asset Management

In a previous post on Intelligent Automation Tools for Hardware Asset Tracking, we reviewed how automated data collection using intelligent automation tools – like those that come with AssetTrack – is essential for building a foundation for ITAM success, but that’s not where the process ends. Once you have automation in place, you need to control the process for how your data is recorded. Without this step, your database will be in worse shape than before.

Edwards Deming said, “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” The same holds true for hardware asset management. You need good data to make good decisions. Without a consistent process for asset tracking and updates, you won’t have either. If everyone is doing things their own way, making mistakes, not adhering to a consistent process and your system has no way to alert you of these issues, your database is just a mess of numbers with no meaning.

Process Control

The goal with establishing process control is to create a consistent, easy process for updating your hardware asset information, so that everyone is on the same page and does things in the same way to ensure the activity and data is always logged correctly. A consistent process opens the door for you to adopt concepts like Lean, 6sigma and agile to ID process defects, make adjustments, then measure the impact of those changes for continual improvement.

AssetTrack® gets hardware asset management system in order by making updates easy. Asset Managers can take control of users and systems data entry with a defined process for each stage of the lifecycle, process specific forms for each activity, exception feedback, and the ability to track metrics and chain of custody.

AssetTrack also requires asset updates through validation in the field, queues in AssetTrack® Standalone or import sets in AssetTrack® for ServiceNow.  Asset managers retain complete control over what information gets logged in the database and AssetTrack® will send proactive alerts if errors are detected to ensure they don’t become issues later. There’s a transaction history for measuring performance and to identify process control breakdowns so process improvements can be made immediately. All of these analytics are time-based, real-time data that lays the groundwork for tracking:

• SLA compliance
• User productivity
• Asset utilization
• Forecasting

This results in a HAM solution that delivers complete, current, accurate data that’s validated as soon as it’s entered.

AssetTrack® makes asset management success a reality right out-of-the-box, with no need for additional dev work. If you’re ready to discuss your specific hardware asset management needs with one of our experts, we’d love to schedule a call today.

If you’d like to see how optimizing your ITAM results in significant savings in labor and productivity, check out our Labor Savings and Productivity ROI Calculator.

Be sure to review our final step for asset management success, in our Performance Data and Analytics Overview.