To be able to track and control your equipment rental management we highly recommend using a software such as farmerswife's equipment management and tracking Add-On. A powerful tool like our software will provide you with all the information you need to manage your equipment smoothly; allowing you to overview the state of your inventory, track where it is and organise your availability.
If you implement all of the advice you will read in this blog, tracking your equipment inventory management will have a big impact on your business growth, money and value. Continue scrolling!
What is Equipment Management Tracking?
- Check equipment in and out with barcode/QR scanning, track lost or broken kit, and keep a history of what’s been where and when.
- Gannt style calendar overview of your current job with clear overview of availability.
- Create and manage equipment kits, including what is under maintenance.
- Build quotes and send invoices before or at the same time booking the equipment out.
- Send automated email notifications to crew and clients.
Why You Should Use Equipment Management Tracking?
Using equipment management tracking will bring you and your business an immense amount of time and reduce frustration in running a business. If you’re constantly finding yourself or your team wasting time looking for lost items or dealing with broken equipment, you should consider an equipment tracking and management software. Using a software would help you to:
- Increase Efficiency and productivity.
- Improve your organization's project time tracking.
- Save money.
- Accurate Information About Assets.
- Reduction of maintenance costs.
- Great customers service.
How to Keep Track of Equipments
Right asset, right place, right time
If you have multiple locations, how should you divide your assets between them? An equal division sounds logical but is not effective, as demand for equipment is unlikely to be the same everywhere.
With accurate and up-to-date usage data you can deploy your assets where they are needed most. Why have equipment gathering dust in one place when there is a shortage elsewhere?
Demand and supply fluctuate over time as well. Offering a discount might let you make money on items that weren’t going to be used anyway, or you can rent extra equipment yourself to bridge short periods of increased demand.
Don’t spend more – spend smarter
One way to ensure that the right equipment is available at the right time is to buy more of everything. But this is inherently wasteful – some of the extra equipment will be put to good use, while the rest will simply sit in storage.
Luckily we can avoid this waste, based on the information we gathered in the earlier steps. By prioritizing your spending on the equipment that is used most you can get the most out of your investment.
• Spend an hour every week making sure your equipment is in great shape
• Spend a day every month repairing equipment that has broken down
Maintenance is clearly the best choice. And while equipment always seems to break down at the worst time possible, you can plan your maintenance ahead of time.
Equipment that is used all the time is obviously more valuable to your business than equipment that is used once a week. But it is also more likely to break down, so it is in higher need of regular maintenance. Plan maintenance based on need, instead of a fixed schedule for all equipment, to make optimal use of your time.
And because you know when your equipment is most likely to be idle you can schedule maintenance to reduce its impact on the rest of your business.
Find underlying issues
If an important piece of equipment breaks down once, it’s an annoyance. But what if it keeps breaking down, over and over? Now that you have data on your equipment, use it!
Look for trends so you can find underlying issues instead of scratching the surface.
Perhaps the breakdowns are caused by an employee who didn’t receive the proper training and has been using the equipment the wrong way. In this case replacing the equipment won’t solve the problem – it’ll just cost you more money in the long run!
Buy the best
Inevitably equipment will have to be replaced or upgraded. But here again you can use the information you’ve gathered to spend your money smarter.
• Which brands cause the most issues?
• Which equipment is liked best?
• Which equipment loses you the most time and money by breaking down?
Use the right equipment inventory system
You can of course try to keep track of this information with pen and paper – just as you can still use horse-drawn carts to get around.
Spreadsheets are another option – but that option has drawbacks as well.
We might be slightly biased, but we truly do believe that using a modern, equipment inventory system is the best solution for your business. It automates a lot of the background work, so you can focus on the things that really matter. Our Add-On EMT allows checking in and out objects in farmerswife through the Dispatch Module or iOS, allows tracking of equipment location, Status (In, Out, On Maintenance) and “movement”.
Conclusion
We hope that these tips can help you make the most out of your equipment. Making smarter decisions based on you collected data can have a massive impact on your business’s efficiency and profits!
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