Smart Asset Operations in Schools and Universities

Evaluating Current Status

As a first step, it’s good to take the time to evaluate the current status of asset management. Below you can find some key questions to identify the available potential.

Are the school assets registered?

A register of assets is the first step in systematic asset management. To gather a full view of all the equipment in the organisation, the assets need to be registered somehow. If the method currently is paper, excel, or memory, it’s worth considering digital options.

Are the asset registers in digital format?

If the organisation’s assets are already in a digital register, that’s great! It’s good to evaluate if the existing digital register covers the needs that arise from operating assets. If the current register doesn’t really support operating the assets, it’s worth exploring some more advanced alternatives.

What is the method of checking the status and location of individual assets?

Is there a digital system in place offering instant visibility for each asset for anyone who needs the information? If not, it might be something that brings operational efficiency.

How are the equipment loans to students managed?

Is there a digital system utilised to register every loan, and check who has what? Are there automatic notifications for returning the lent equipment in place? If not, there are obvious benefits to gain with a modern tool. With asset labels and a modern digital tool, it’s possible to improve the control over the assets, and reduce asset misuse and misplacements.

How are the maintenance activities managed?

It is important to maintain sufficient logs about all completed maintenance and have the logs available for later review. Digital maintenance planning brings both efficiency and control over compliance. A smart system stores the past logs but also reminds users about upcoming maintenance activities. Digital tool provides peace of mind to those who are responsible for ensuring completed maintenances.

Are the assets labeled with identifiers?

There are multiple benefits to labeling assets. The most important is creating a connection between the physical asset and information logs. With labels, all information can be immediately checked for each item. Another important benefit is marking all items with the company logo, so that all users know who’s device it is, and alone that reduces asset misuse.

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Solution Examples for Schools and Universities

There are many corners in asset operations that would benefit from digitalisation. Effective equipment management ensures that equipment meets teaching needs and remains performing throughout its lifetime.

Equipment loans to students and staff members

These days, for many educational institutions, it is a must to provide students with a laptop. This means that the school has hundreds or thousands of laptops to manage. They need to determine how to register loans to individual students, how to ensure returns, how to operate when there are defect, and so on.

If all equipment has an asset label attached to them making each laptop unique, it’s possible to scan the label and register the student who currently has that specific device. This is how the best have solved managing the loans. With modern asset register, it’s possible to produce individual labels to each device and register all changes simply by scanning the label. After that, the information about each asset is in digital format, and can be checked at any time.

Modern system also enables notifications for the user to return the device at a given time. That frees up the time of the school employees from reminding the users.

Labels have also a significant advantage in reducing misuse. Many schools have chosen to print their logo on the asset label, indicating immediately to any user who’s device is in question. This alone decreases the rate of misplaced equipment.

Utilising data for smart investments and cost savings

When assets are organised well, and every asset is labeled, it immediately communicates that the organization cares for the assets it owns. It is an important indication of smart and sustainable operations.

However, more importantly, when asset are digitalised, there is a possibility to utilise the accumulating data about asset usage and asset condition. This means that there is no need to make unnecessary renewal investments if the existing equipment is still serving well. Also this means that the investments can be targeted to bottlenecks and all unnecessary equipment can be recycled. With proper maintenance processes and longer lifecycles, costs are saved and investments optimised.

Read here a case study from Oulu University of Applied Sciences relying on Trail for equipment management.

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Process of implementation

Implementing an operational asset management system is a straightforward process.

After testing that the solution fits processes, it’s time to sign the service agreement.

After service agreement it’s time to organise a kickoff meeting. Internally this is a good time to adjust any processes and define responsibilities for the implementation.

After kickoff meeting, the named key users are provided with training to get started and the suitable hardware for labeling is evaluated and selected.

After kickoff meeting, the gathering of the asset information starts, either by collecting data from other systems or by completing an inventory of assets in the organisation. It’s important that there are clear responsibilities defined for this step.

As a final step of the implementation, the gathered information is forwarded to Trail for import and the normal usage of the system can start.

How to get started?

If you are not yet sure what would be the best solution and what are the functionalities that would benefit your school most, we’d recommend starting from a personalised demo session. The session can be organised remotely and it offers a good opportunity to talk directly to a professional and ask questions. You can request a free demo session of Trail from sales@trail.fi at any time!

If you already know that you want to try Trail to see how it would fit your processes, just reach out to sales@trail.fi and let us know that you would like to start a trial period

We at Trail organise regularly webinars exploring the best practices in asset operations If you would be interested in attending a future webinar, just reach out to us at info@trail.fi and we’ll forward you the link for registration.