Press Release:  Asset Tracking Made Easy For University Of NSW With TIG System

The University of New South Wales has 3 campuses and 15 off-site facilities, which including 7 teaching hospitals.   State wide around 60,000 assets are contained in the University’s PeopleSoft system.  Asset Tracking of such a magnitude of assets is a major task but by installing the Asset Tracking Tool (ATT) from TIG International this has become easier and faster to complete.

A team of three people are dedicated to the task of tracking assets for the University, which entails travelling to each facility and ensuring that all assets are accounted for. Various classes of assets are tracked, and include everything from computers to laboratory equipment to motor vehicles.  Some are relatively small items, while others are large and bulky and high in value.  As many as 11,000 assets can be located at just one facility.  This combination of factors makes the task of accounting for assets very time-consuming.

The University had been using a computerised asset tracking system for some time but found that the equipment they were using did not have the capacity to hold details on a large number of assets.  This meant that repeat visits to the facilities were often required in order to complete the task.

In order to speed up the entire process and reduce the associated costs it was decided to upgrade the scanners.  Various suppliers were contacted and requested to submit quotes.  From these the University chose the TIG solution, not only because they were competitive with their price, but also because the solution had been professionally presented.

Feedback from the University was positive and in the end, their decision was driven by the presentation and the solution - TIG had not only given them all the information they asked for, but more.  The information requested was supplied in a way that made the choice easy.

The TIG ATT system was installed within a single day and the system was immediately operational.  The chosen system included Symbol SPT1800 handheld scanners, which resolved the data capacity constraint and improved the efficiency of an all-up count of assets by 50% for the University.

A feature of the Symbol SPT1800 handheld device is the capability of storing more details on a significantly larger number of assets.  This enables all the information required for a particular facility to be easily downloaded onto one handheld scanner.

By taking only one scanner to a site, it is possible to complete an entire asset tracking task for assets at that location in one visit.  “Our customer tells us it used to take them around 6 months to complete tracking all their assets in every faculty. They are now able to track 5,000 assets per day, and quite easily too,” TIG said.

Originally published on the Automatic Data Capture Forum (ADCA) Australian website (2001).