subject: The Spreadsheet versus Online Asset Management Software [print this page] Pressures in the business environment from the recessions aftermath has increased awareness among business executives to ensure that business keeps afloat while ensuring profitability at every milestone in operations. This means that every measurement metric needs to be carefully analyzed, with every opportunity for improvement that comes to be grabbed. Sooner or later, the team of executives will be able to realize that although the older methods from the past could still be acceptable at the present, these would be far from enough.The efficiency of the business is only as good as the combined efficiency of all of its assets. Each piece of equipment is responsible for a certain task. Efficiency was traditionally measured based on performance versus its purpose. Such metric would not be sufficient on its own and our measurement capabilities would be too primitive to be effective. Now is the time when we need to have a look at online asset management software solutions which can greatly help us gather important data for asset management in real-time.In today's pressurized business environment, executives must ensure that they leave no stone unturned as they strive to keep the company above water, let alone try and turn a profit. The brutal recession has ensured that every measurement metric must be carefully analyzed and every opportunity for improvement seized.Unless we are able to determine how each piece of equipment operates, we cannot hope to contain our burgeoning energy costs. For already too long a time, companies have been reliant on spreadsheets and other traditional form when it comes to the recording of asset inventory, maintenance history and relevant performance. Spreadsheets are very static tools and hardly suitable if we are to analyze pure efficiency.In the 1980s, spreadsheets were introduced, and now that there are becoming more functional than how it used to be in that decade, the problems are still there. Fundamentally, we are not able to constantly monitor asset performance in real-time, as spreadsheets are designed to record merely a "snapshot." Online asset management software solutions, on the contrary, can give us a far greater insight and a much deeper visibility into equipment efficiency.Online asset management software can be used to monitor every piece of equipment and can relate to benchmarks to trigger warnings and alarms. If a piece of equipment is found to be using more energy, for example, the software can immediately alert and even send a message to summon the appropriate service provider. Such would help eliminate unnecessarily lengthy downtime.Many organizations have a very poor way of recording the asset inventories in their possession. The methods they use harp back to the old times and they may have numerous different systems in place. An organization would find it difficult to be fully efficient as it can never be fully aware of online asset management systems and asset inventory which are based on a thorough identification screen and asset tagging system.Energy can represent more than one third of monthly expenditure for the typical business and its cost is rising dramatically. The call for sustainability requires us to control our energy usage, at the same time as we cut back on our associated carbon emissions. In order for us to achieve this, we need to control the performance at the asset level.Online asset management software is a far more dynamic tool when compared to the traditional Excel spreadsheet-based approach. It enables much better visibility across the enterprise and helps to eliminate confusion.
The Spreadsheet versus Online Asset Management Software
