What is Asset Tracking?
Asset tracking is the process of keeping track of your company’s physical assets and their information (location, status, due dates, etc.). Depending on your business, physical assets can mean different kinds of equipment, IT devices, tools, or vehicles, for example. The term asset tracking is often used interchangeably with the term asset management, and increasing amounts of data are now generated, transmitted and processed by today’s ever more sophisticated systems.
Why?
The ultimate goal of asset tracking is simple: to save time and money. Tracking company assets provides invaluable information about asset usage (who is using what, where and when), maintenance and calibration schedules, and need for new equipment.
It’s also possible to monitor the condition of assets, for example temperature or humidity, and to act on that data to maintain the quality of the assets.
The data collected via asset tracking can be used to support decision making, prevent losses, and maximize asset utilization rates.
Where?
Various industries can benefit from asset tracking, however, use cases can vary depending on the domain, for example:
- Construction: Keeping track of commonly used tools across multiple work sites and warehouses
- Healthcare: Indoor tracking of medical equipment
- Education: Making sure expensive equipment stays within the campus area (geofencing)
- Leasing: Keeping records of leased equipment; generating invoicing info based on actual usage
- Cold Chain: Monitoring the condition of perishable goods as well as their location
How?
The TT Electronics S-2CONNECT Pro Tracking and Monitoring Kit can help to explore how asset tracking could work for your application. This off-the-shelf kit can be deployed to connect, track, sense, and monitor applications such as asset tracking, cold chain, smart home and industrial IoT scenarios.
The kit provides a smart hub and sensor solution to measure temperature, humidity, acceleration and light. Purchase of the kit provides three months’ cellular subscription and up to 25MB data per month, plus access to the S-2CONNECT portal and cloud based services.
