Assets

Getting Started with the Assets Domain

Which Asset Applications Do I Need?

For managing assets, Archibus offers:

• Modules
  • Assets module
• Applications
  • Assets
  • Enterprise Assets
  • Telecom Assets
  • Asset Portal

For information on the products you require, see Understanding the Asset Applications.

Do I Need to Develop Equipment Plans and Jack Plans in CAD?

With all three asset management application, you can choose to document your furniture and equipment assets with alphanumeric database records only, or represent your furniture and equipment assets in CAD drawings and link these representations to database records to form asset symbols.

From an asset management perspective, most equipment and jacks can be located by finding the room or workstation in which the item resides, and so an equipment list or jack list (inventory in the database) suffices. If a user needs to locate an equipment or jack item, they can consult the item's room number and then locate the room on a room plan.

However, you may want to develop equipment and jack plans for:

• stationary equipment, such as air conditioning and heating equipment, that is not in a room location (for example, those items that are on the roof).
• equipment for which you want to provide location maps for your maintenance technicians.
• equipment located in telecom equipment rooms. This equipment may not be easily identified without an equipment plan since the rooms often contain multiple pieces of equipment and often multiple pieces of equipment of the same type.
• equipment with regulatory monitoring requirements, for which you need to provide location maps for inspectors along with the asset and maintenance log information.

Do I Need to Develop a Furniture Plan in CAD?

You can track the location of your furniture using an alphanumeric inventory that lists the furniture and its location. If you are developing floor plan drawings with rooms, you have the option to graphically depict furniture information in the appropriate rooms. The following are the benefits of developing your furniture assets in a floor plan drawing for each of the furniture inventory methods.

• Tagged Furniture Inventories: CAD plans showing the location of tagged furniture items can be important tools when locating furniture items to service or move. Graphically seeing where a furniture item is located on the floor plan, particularly a unique or expensive piece, can aid in finding the correct item.
• Furniture Standards Inventory: Some sites may wish to take their furniture standards inventory a step further and graphically depict their furniture inventory in their floor plan drawings. By laying out the existing space, you can tell how many furniture standards of each type you have.  By laying out the destination space, you can tell how many pieces of each furniture standard type you will need.

Do I Need to Uniquely Identify Each Furniture Item?

The Archibus Assets domain provides two types of furniture inventories: tagged furniture inventories and furniture standards inventories. The inventories are similar in that they both work with individual records and support graphical representations in CAD drawings. They differ in that tagged furniture inventories map to specific furniture assets, while furniture standards inventories are based on standards and location.

For details, see Choosing a Furniture Inventory Method.

Do I Want to Track Insurance and Warranties?

Since equipment assets represent a significant investment, companies typically insure them. With this feature, you develop data for your insurers and policies, and then assign equipment items to policies. Since policies are generally bought for groups of assets, you can assign one policy to several assets; you can also apply a policy to a single asset, such as a valuable painting. See Equipment Process (Asset Portal) Overview for information on entering insurance.

The View and Edit Warranties tasks enables you to enter and track warranty and expiration information for your equipment inventories. If an item breaks, you can quickly find its associated warranty information using the item’s identifying tag.

Note: Whereas insurance is available only in Asset Portal, warranties are tracked in Asset Portal as well as with the Asset Registration Console. However, when assigning warranties to equipment using the Asset Registration Console, you must initially develop the warranties using Asset Portal or Telecom Management applications.

How Do I Keep My Inventory Current?

In the day-to-day operation of a facility, the status of equipment and its location can change such that the electronic inventory becomes out of date. One contributing factor to an out-of date inventory is employees moving equipment on their own without notifying the facilities manager. For example, a department printer can be moved to a new location to make room for a temporary worker; a projector can be left in the conference room and not returned to its proper location for weeks; a worker can use their laptop as their main system and pack away the PC at their desk.

To ensure that the electronic inventory matches the real-world disposition of equipment, Archibus offers the Asset & Equipment Survey mobile application so that auditors in the field can survey the equipment assets of each room and inform the facilities manager of any discrepancies. The facility manager can then use the Web Central's Manage Asset & Equipment Surveys task to review the survey data and update the electronic inventory with changes found in the field.

In addition to aligning inventory with reality, you can use equipment surveys when getting started with an electronic inventory. Field auditors can survey your existing items, upload them to the server, and the facility manager can then add the items to the electronic inventory.