Agriculture Companies Must Formalize How They Track Assets

You’d be hard-pressed to find a single industry sector that can’t benefit from a formalized system to track assets, and agriculture is a great example. Business owners in the agricultural sector have a large volume of equipment and tools to manage, sometimes at multiple locations and many of them remote. They need a way to determine the assets they have and where those assets are located. That knowledge allows them to assign the resources they need to each job site and, if possible, minimize the distance those assets have to travel, and a system to track assets can help them pinpoint the closest assets for the job at hand.

The Importance of an Audit

The first step toward better asset management is a thorough audit – it eliminates guesswork and waste and helps companies ensure that they’re prepared for the upcoming season. It’s hard to oversell the benefit of knowing at a moment’s notice the assets you have and where they’re located. Without a formalized means to track assets, staff members have to get on the phone and hunt down the location of assets. This is inefficient, reduces employee productivity, and can be an incredibly frustrating exercise that can delay your teams in the field. Without insight into where your assets are located, you may spend money shipping assets across long distances when, in reality, you had assets closer to the job site that could have been utilized.

Industry Trends Suggest Need for Better Tracking Methods

In a June 2019 article published in Disruptor Daily, 13 industry experts discussed the trends they believe are shaping the future of the agriculture industry. Among the trends they identified were supply chain transparency, data management – specifically, the removal of data from silos -- IoT (Internet of Things), and sustainability. The term “traceability” applies to all of those trends. Quite simply, to be competitive, agricultural companies need a quick and easy way to access and harness their data. They’re moving toward a model in which every stakeholder involved in the respective lifecycles of their assets and inventory is connected. Consumers want to know where their food is coming from. Companies have to make that information readily available -- not just to meet consumer expectations, but also in the event of a product-related crisis.

Worker Safety

Maintaining a safe working environment for employees is a top priority for the agriculture industry. The ability to track assets can help business owners accomplish that objective. Users can create customized notifications and alerts that remind them of key maintenance and updates, so these important service dates never fall through the cracks again and potentially place workers at risk. Tracking assets gives you the ability to access equipment insurance policies, warranties, lease or purchase information, depreciation, complete maintenance histories, check-in/check-out statuses, and much more. Managers can examine the company’s equipment usage across the board and make more informed decisions about, for example, where additional assets are needed or when they may need to be replaced.

A Simpler Way to Track Assets Any Way You Want

Asset Panda provides agricultural companies with a simple yet powerful way to track assets. It’s powered by a free mobile app that syncs with the cloud, which in turn gives employees 24-hour access to real-time, comprehensive data – all from the mobile devices they already carry. Asset Panda easily integrates with legacy systems and has an intuitive interface and customizable features, so employees won’t need extensive training to learn the software.