What Is Asset Tracking? Benefits & How It Works

Keeping the environment within your building even is anything but easy. An intricate network of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment works hard—sometimes without rest—to keep the temperatures and air quality at desired conditions. But suppose one of these critical units fails, and your workers are left shivering through the winter or sweating in the summer's heat. This is precisely where HVAC asset management comes into play.

    

The Challenge of Traditional Methods

Most companies are still using the traditional way of handling assets under HVAC, which is cumbersome and prone to several errors. Spreadsheets and paper logs are usually used in tracking equipment location, history of maintenance, and needs for service. This is inefficient and can lead to several problems, for example:

Time-wasting Searches: Specific equipment location, especially in a multi-stored large building, really takes time. Most of the time, the technicians waste ample time on the search for units instead of focusing on repairs or maintenance.

Incomplete or Inaccurate Records: Records usually are not complete, and therefore they could even be inaccurate. Maintenance history is manual, thus meaning there is usually a significant margin for human error. The result would most likely be missed preventive maintenance, thus allowing equipment failure to occur because of incomplete or inaccurate records.

Reactive Maintenance: Lack of a clear image of the state of equipment health pushes many organizations into reactive maintenance. In this kind of approach, breakdowns are being repaired once they take place, which is much costlier and disruptive in comparison to proactive maintenance.

Benefits of HVAC Asset Tracking System: Efficiency, Enhanced Maintenance, and Cost Optimization

Imagine a world where technicians can locate equipment in seconds, stay reminded of due maintenance automatically, and whip up reports in just a few clicks. All of these benefits of HVAC asset tracking and many more are the exact reality of an HVAC asset tracking system:

Improved Efficiency of Field Operations: No more wasting time looking for lost equipment. Technicians can locate the exact site of any HVAC unit using their mobile app, and therefore service calls can be completed more quickly, improving overall productivity.

Better Scheduling and Dispatch: With location information in real-time, dispatchers can take charge of sending their technicians to the closest jobs, eliminating travel time and on-time service.

Improved Maintenance Practice: Timely plan for preventive maintenance through either manufacturer recommendations or usage data for equipment. This means the machine will undergo service at the right time, hence cutting the chances of breaking down, and in the process, incurring a possible high cost.

Improved Maintenance History Record Keeping: All activities for maintenance and services conducted on the asset, including replaced parts and notes from the technician, are maintained and kept electronically. This would create a whole history of all items, from which, trends can more easily be identified, and forecasts made on future maintenance requirements.

Early Detection of Potential Equipment Failures: In this approach's framework, the data from the sensors of the HVAC units are monitored to detect the early signals of an anomaly that may cause possible problems. Early intervention saves not only the mammoth costs of equipment failures but also ensures comfort for the occupants.

Cost Optimization and Budgeting: Properly maintained, the life of your HVAC equipment will increase; hence, you save money since you do not have to go out and buy a new one. Improved data on equipment health and a better history of maintenance enable one to accurately budget for future HVAC needs.

How HVAC Asset Tracking System Works

An HVAC asset tracking system typically consists of three key components:

Tracking Devices

These are small tags or sensors fitted on each piece of equipment. As per the level of requirement that one has and the size of the budget available, he or she can opt for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, GPS trackers, or even QR codes. RFID tags offer an economical solution to carry out tracking locally within the building, whereas the GPS tracker provides locational data from everywhere in real time, basically coming from everywhere with cellular coverage. The use of QR codes provides an elementary solution for linking asset identification with maintenance records.

Mobile Application

On the other hand, the field technician has an easy-to-use mobile application serving him as an interface to the tracking system. He is supposed to scan the tracking tags, update the status of the equipment (e.g., online, offline, under maintenance), and provide service notes. This information is thereafter, in an automated way, relayed in real-time to the cloud-based software.

Cloud-Based Asset Management Software

Essentially the heart of all your HVAC asset management is data, this option provides an all-inclusive dashboard that allows you a look at the real-time location and status of all of your equipment. You may also create reports on equipment health, maintenance history, and service trends. Such data can be pretty helpful in finding the areas that need improvements to finally optimize your general maintenance strategy.

The Power of Data: Analysis and Reporting

There is a lot of valuable data involved in the HVAC Asset Tracking system that will give deeper insights into equipment performance. The software itself will have the capability of generating the following kinds of reporting, showing:

Equipment Health: Monitor some essential key performance indicators (KPIs) such as temperature, pressure, and power to know in advance when something is not right so that action can be taken before it becomes a serious problem.

Track Location: Monitor the apparatus its current location either in portable units or in the equipment being deployed at multiple client sites. This ensures the efficient dispatch of a technician and the allocation of resources.

Maintenance History: Maintain a central record for all service calls, repairs, and replacements carried out on each equipment item. This historical data is invaluable in terms of planning and budgeting within a preventive maintenance set-up.

The reports are analysed to make informed decisions concerning the HVAC equipment. Doing so helps in recognizing trends, predicting most likely failures, and scheduling the period for maintenance in such a way that your system keeps running smoothly and efficiently.

The Future of HVAC Asset Tracking: Innovation on the Horizon

The future for HVAC asset management is bright; there are still further technological advancements yet to come.

Growing Integration with Emerging Technologies: Full integration should occur with all other technologies soon, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). AI software cannot only gather data from equipment but also analyze the same to provide pre-failure alarms along with the recommendations needed to be followed for taking preventive actions. This more detailed information can be used for even more comprehensive monitoring.

Predictive Maintenance Capabilities: Predictive maintenance is mature, meaning it can forecast equipment failure well before its occurrence. This way, the downtime will be minimal, with assurance of optimum performance of the system.

Better Security and Privacy of Data: As we will depend more on the data, certainly there will be a call for good security to save the critical information residing on the equipment. Preferences would be to those solutions which have data encryption and access control on a high scale.

Also Check: How Digital Asset Management Works