What is Asset Management?
Laboratories are being increasingly challenged to manage their equipment assets more effectively across their lifecycle.
The lifecycle starts when identifying a need for a piece of equipment, defining a specification, and then procuring the best value piece of equipment that achieves that specification. The system then has to be installed in appropriate environment and in some cases validated against its intended use. During the earlier stages of its life the equipment is often used in a mission critical environment and so scheduled preventive maintenance and qualification, and a responsive repair service are a must.
Equipment may undergo a number of updates or upgrades over its lifetime and in regulated environments there will often be a need to re-validate the system. Equipment may move locations over its lifetime and laboratories will want to keep track of location and configuration. When equipment moves its criticality may change, and the service coverage reduced to suit. Sometimes equipment becomes superfluous to requirements and companies will want to recover some of their investment by selling the equipment in the open market.
At some point equipment reliability may decrease and laboratories will want to factor increasing maintenance costs into their replacement equipment process. Ageing, yet still valuable equipment may get salvaged for spares to keep other assets running. Finally, when equipment is eventually removed from service it will need to be disposed of in an environmentally safe and business secure manner.
OneSource provides service to help laboratories at every stage of the life cycle. Asset management is intrinsic to any OneSource solution, but in addition we can also provide:
- A state-of-the-art software system, which manages your equipment assets throughout their life cycle. The system manages important asset parameters such as value, location, configuration, maintenance schedules, and cost of ownership. It provides real time reporting of asset performance including a virtual warehouse of unused equipment available for redeployment within the scientific community
- An asset appraisal service for individual assets or complete sites that assesses resale values based on secondary market transactions of high technology equipment sold via auctions, sealed bids, liquidations and other private and/or nontraditional trades.
- Asset recovery services for individual or large quantities of unused assets. The service turns unused assets into cash through a portfolio of auction services including on-site, web cast, and on-line. Most auction based service are transacted on a sold-as-seen basis, and sometimes buyers do not get chance to view equipment or understand its condition. Often buyers have to arrange their own transport, insurance and commissioning. OneSource enhances this process with available buyer reports, relocation services, and the ability to provide a warranty on specified technologies
- Asset recovery solutions can be fully integrated with OneSource Laboratory Relocation programs