According to global asset management specialists, the demand for asset tracking IoT devices will triple by 2022. Transportation, industrial, manufacturing, agricultural, and other industries will all profit greatly from this technology. One of the most prominent Internet of Things application areas is asset management or asset tracking (IoT).
What is Asset Management, and how does it work?
Asset management is a systematic technique to maintain an asset or device in order to balance and improve productivity while requiring minimal maintenance, resulting in low cost-effectiveness in an organization. A physical asset can be a basic single device or a large sophisticated structure with several sensors. To guarantee that these assets and sensors are operated within an appropriate regulatory framework, they require several forms of maintenance, such as electrical, hydraulic, and mechanical. Asset management is the process of tracking every physical device in a business, no matter how big or little. It provides detailed information such as who is using the device (user), where the device is located, its health, and its performance. If a gadget is connected to sensors, the sensor data must be tracked as well. A car, IT gadgets, electrical devices, or any other device employed in a business might be considered an asset.
What is IoT (Internet of Things)?
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a computing paradigm that combines hardware, software, sensors, actuators, and other components. The internet of things (IoT) outlines how everyday physical gadgets are connected to the internet and may identify themselves with other devices. In simple terms, if you have an electronic device in the United States, you can manage and monitor all of the device's characteristics, such as its health performance. With the use of the internet, i.e., nothing but IoT, you can even manipulate that equipment while sitting in India. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that describes a world in which anything may be connected and intelligently communicated. In other words, the physical world is becoming one enormous information system with the help of IoT. Asset management is aided by the Internet of Things (IoT): Before we get into the benefits of IoT in asset management, let's take a look at how the company maintains its assets and what sort of data they can track without using an IoT platform. Legacy system (without IoT) The old manner of managing assets in a company was to use silos systems like handwritten lists or excel sheets to monitor asset details, which were inefficient, prone to errors, time-consuming and necessitated the employment of more human resources as an asset manager. Asset management with the Internet of Things: The Internet of Things (IoT) connects physical assets with IT systems by sending and exchanging data over the internet. IoT elevates traditional asset management software by allowing connected devices to automatically talk with one another and transfer data to the desired destination in an automated process that eliminates the need for human intervention. Typical physical equipment, for example, can be transformed into an IoT device by adding sensors. A central monitoring system can be linked to the sensors. The sensors will then provide the relevant information to the central monitoring system, such as their current location, running condition, health, and potential problems. The asset manager can take proactive action on that specific asset that requires urgent maintenance by visualizing it and creating a work order for it. A message will be sent to a field engineer who will inspect and repair the device. Physical device downtime can be avoided in a company, resulting in a significant increase in productivity. The IoT platform has already been launched by various organizations such as IBM, PTC, and others with the help of many open sources and paid employees. What are the Benefits of Managing IoT Assets? Several asset-intensive firms have the following goals:
- Improve the organization's image and ensure its long-term viability.
- Maintenance costs are reduced.
- Increase the amount of time an asset is unavailable due to a failure.
- Boost productivity and get a good return on your investment.
The primary ways IoT-enabled technologies can help with this are outlined below.
- Reduce human participation and improve device efficiency: The Internet of Things (IoT) can automate end-to-end processes by communicating asset status, health, and other metrics to a central system on a continual basis. The use of sensors in a system reduces the requirement for human resources to inspect and maintain each asset unnecessarily. The Internet of Things recognizes which assets require attention and which do not. If a device fails to communicate the desired data to the central system through the sensors, a field engineer can be contacted to proactively examine that device and prevent device downtime failure, resulting in the increased device or asset efficiency.
- Extend the asset's life and reduce repair and replacement costs: Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled asset management enables predictive maintenance, which can help prevent a device from failing. We can maintain track of a device's performance data using particular sensors, and based on that, we can determine when the asset is likely to fail and require maintenance. When the maintenance manager sees the problem, he or she appoints an engineer to investigate it.
- Strategic cost tracking: It's difficult for any organization to reduce maintenance costs without first addressing the source of the expenses. If a maintenance manager is unaware of the fundamental cause of a problem with an asset, he will be unable to take the necessary steps to repair it. IoT-enabled assets will provide information in the form of parameter data, allowing the root cause to be identified and smart financial decisions to be made.
IoT Asset Management Use Cases:
Asset tracking: geofencing solution using GPS tracker, and automatic location data.
Material Flows: Maintains and automates material flow tracking and reporting.
Automatic warehouse inventories: are performed without the usage of a separate traditional inventory system.
Usage Hours: Automatically track running hours and alert you when you reach the maximum threshold.
At Maximo, we assist businesses in achieving real-time asset monitoring, developing a sophisticated predictive maintenance strategy, and implementing asset tracking. Higher asset uptime and greater ROI from CMMS / EAM will be enabled by our dedicated IoT asset monitoring platform.