Business owners understand how important it is to track inventory and assets closely throughout the supply chain to avoid issues such as inventory shrinkage, loss, and more. When it comes to high-value assets (HVAs)—assets critical to maintaining accuracy and efficiency in warehouses, distribution centers, and many other facilities—accurate tracking becomes even more critical.

There are many reliable solutions available for high-value asset tracking. From classic barcodes to more advanced solutions such as RFID, many systems promise to provide real-time insights into HVAs, including not only their location but also their current status and even details on maintenance or calibration.

Different facilities call for different asset tracking solutions, and in this guide, we go over what you need to know to find the right solution for your business. This includes: what HVA tracking is, how it works, and which solutions are preferable in various settings or scenarios throughout the supply chain.  

What Are High-Value Assets?

In general, assets qualify as high-value if they are deemed so critical that their loss or incapacitation would make it difficult or even impossible to carry out essential business functions. In supply chain and logistics, high-value assets are often expensive equipment and key IT tools.

What is deemed high-value will differ from one enterprise to the next, but common examples of high-value assets include:

• Mobile devices
• IT hardware and software
• Forklifts
• Hydraulic stackers
• Automated guided vehicles
• Autonomous mobile robots 

What Is Asset Tracking?

Asset tracking involves a robust, data-driven system meant to provide insight into the location and status of key physical assets. This process can take many forms but emphasizes the continual management of critical assets to ensure that they are easy to find, manage, and retrieve.

Today’s asset tracking solutions rely on a strategic combination of hardware and software, designed to report the status of various physical objects and also gather (and analyze) metrics over time. These systems are typically cloud-based to enable real-time changes, especially as details about HVAs are updated. The ultimate goal is to boost asset visibility and drive data-backed insights. These, in turn, support decision-making processes and can boost efficiency, accuracy, and compliance. 

Ways to Track High-Value Assets

There are many viable methods for tracking high-value assets. These days, enterprises primarily rely on barcoding, RFID, and GPS — or some mix of these strategies — to supply real-time insights and to make asset tracking systems as efficient and accurate as possible. We’ve provided details on these top solutions below: 

Barcodes

Affordable and easy to implement, barcodes have long been a go-to solution for simple asset tracking. These labels or tags rely on machine-readable displays to convey data. Most people are familiar with the stripe-based barcodes heavily used in retail settings, but a combination of barcode tags, barcode readers, and asset-tracking software can bring the simple efficacy of barcodes to asset control and general inventory management.

Barcode labels and tags can be printed onsite, on-demand, and attached to physical assets as needed. Manual or fixed-mount scanners must see the barcode to scan it and send the data to a software system, which includes a vast database complete with all assets, plus relevant maintenance records and location data. The downside to using barcodes is that line-of-sight scanning is required, as opposed to other sightless technologies, which cannot provide real-time locationing but rather, the last place the barcode was scanned.

When implemented correctly, barcode-based asset tracking systems can dramatically improve both speed and accuracy without requiring extensive upfront costs. While other solutions promote operational efficiency, there is no denying that barcodes are preferable to manual systems. 

GPS Tracking

Global Positioning System (GPS) devices can be directly attached to assets to provide valuable insights into their current location and status. These devices are typically battery-powered, although they vary greatly in their quality and the amount of data they generate. Some simple GPS systems essentially only provide dots on a map, offering a brief overview of assets but not necessarily enough data to drive strategic decision-making.

Today’s more robust asset-tracking solutions offer greater visibility regarding how particular assets are used on a daily basis. These systems may even incorporate geofencing, which reveals when items have left specific job sites or zones.

Real-time alerts make GPS systems compelling for tracking fleets or, in some situations, electronic equipment. These systems are available for many types of assets and across a range of price points. 

RFID Tags

Radio-frequency identification draws on the power of electromagnetic fields to easily identify and track assets. These systems typically consist of RFID readers, tags, and antennas, which work together to produce an efficient and highly accurate means of generating data. This data is stored within tags’ microchips, where it waits to be accessed by the RFID reader.

During the RFID process, electromagnetic energy is sent from the antenna of the RFID reader to the antenna of the RFID tag. Power sends radio waves to the reader, which interprets these waves as data. 

RFID tags are categorized as active or passive. Passive RFID tags rely on radio waves from the readers for power, making them cost-effective and less likely to contribute to radio noise. Active RFID tags, with their own power sources, offer greater processing power and read ranges and are better suited for tracking larger items.

RFID is one of the most effective asset tagging solutions available, in part because unlike barcodes, there is no need for direct lines of sight. This allows for faster data retrieval, even as compared to the most efficient barcode systems. 

What Is the Best Method?

There is no one high-value asset tracking method that works perfectly in every situation. Much  depends on the types of assets tracked and the realities of the warehouse environment. In general, however, RFID has emerged as the preferred method  for high-value asset tracking because it is uniquely efficient and also produces a wealth of actionable insights. RFID solutions are also highly scalable and can be adapted to fit the changing needs of growing enterprises. 

Use Cases

HVA tracking with RFID is valuable across nearly every sector and in all types of warehouse settings. To reveal the power of these systems, we’ve highlighted a few pertinent use cases:

• Forklift tracking. RFID systems can pinpoint exactly where forklifts are situated within the vast warehouse environment and how they move about this space.
• Cabinets and carts. Ideal for automating both inventory and asset management, RFID-enabled cabinets and carts are excellent solutions in the healthcare space but also work well in warehousing and many other environments.
• Automated guided vehicles (AGVs). As more locations aim to streamline processes with AGVs and other robotics solutions, enterprises need a reliable system for tracking these assets, especially as they are so costly to implement.

We are continuing to see a greater share of systems blend elements of RFID with the Internet of Things (IoT) to achieve even more effective asset tracking. This includes the ability to track temperature and other factors that influence the supply chain. 

Benefits of Tracking

When you choose the right tracking systems for your workflows and implement them correctly, you can expect a myriad of benefits that make your operation more productive and more cost-effective. Key advantages include:

• Add real-time visibility. If there is one central benefit of high-value asset tracking, it’s the potential to gain real-time visibility. This, in turn, prompts many of the other benefits we’ll discuss below, such as improved organization, reduced inventory theft, and more. The data obtained through HVA tracking can be leveraged to improve asset management and limit the potential for misplacement.
• Limit asset shrinkage. If there is any discernible difference between the assets on record and those actually present, shrinkage has likely occurred. This represents the difference between the assets recorded and those that actually exist and are present on premises. Enterprises are more prone to asset shrinkage when there is no reliable system to verify and update which assets are actually available.
• Prevent inventory theft. Inventory theft is an unfortunately common form of asset shrinkage. Tracking solutions such as RFID represent one of the most impactful options for preventing theft, as these provide instant insight into high-value assets and inventory, allowing for quick notifications when these are removed from their intended locations.
• Avoid human error. From typos to double entries, employees are prone to a variety of mistakes that make it difficult to maintain truly accurate insights if reliant on manual systems. Asset tracking builds-in accountability and can also reveal whether there are any patterns where mistakes occur or which issues exacerbate them.
• Lower operational costs. Manual tracking systems tend to be time-consuming to use and, because they are less accurate and effective than higher-tech counterparts, they can dramatically increase administrative expenses. Systems such as RFID reduce these costs by limiting the need for human labor for particular tasks.
• Improve warehouse organization and processes. RFID and other tracking systems bring much-needed order to warehouse processes and, by revealing equipment status, can improve utilization and limit downtime. This also improves warehouse processes by boosting maintenance, as automation for maintenance and calibration solutions ensures that all tools and equipment are in excellent shape.
• Improved customer service. Comprehensive tracking solutions make it easier to quickly answer customer questions or resolve their concerns. This, in turn, boosts customer satisfaction, as do  the general improvements in efficiency and turnaround that advanced tracking solutions promote.
• Ensuring regulatory compliance. In some sectors, accurate tracking and visibility are not merely helpful but actually vital to achieving regulatory compliance. By improving traceability, solutions such as RFID can help enterprises in sectors such as medical manufacturing remain fully compliant with strict regulations. 

Protect Your High-Value Assets with RFID

As you seek a reliable solution for securing your most valuable assets, look to the experts at Peak Technologies for guidance. We offer a variety of asset visibility solutions, including RFID services,  consulting, system design, implementation and training. Reach out today to learn more about these opportunities or to chat with one of our systems consultants.