Asset management is the process of developing, maintaining, and disposing of your business assets in a systematic and efficient manner. This can only be navigated successfully by having thorough and complete visibility of your asset base.

But it’s often challenging – particularly for those owning and renting out a large number of tangible assets.

TrackAbout is specifically designed to facilitate this process by providing customers with accurate, real-time visibility of their inventory – allowing them to make better, more informed decisions.

In this blog, we share five ways TrackAbout can help you consistently manage your returnable containers and enhance your performance and efficiency. 

Highlights

• Identify Your Assets 

• Track Them Effectively 

• Maintain Your Assets 

• Understand the Risks and Benefits 

• Make Use of Your Data

Tip #1: Identify Your Assets

The definition of business assets is wide-ranging and can include anything from intellectual property to physical goods.

At TrackAbout, we’re focused on helping you monitor and control the products that help you generate direct income. For gas and chemical distributors, that means the valuable cylinders and totes used on a daily basis to ship goods to your customers.

After all, losing track of these key assets could not only result in delayed shipments and disgruntled customers, but it could also be really bad news for your bottom line – particularly when replacement costs are so high.

Tip #2: Track Them Effectively

Do you always know the whereabouts of your returnable assets? Our smart technology helps distributors capture attributes of each individual asset, like its contents, volume, location, maintenance history, and more.

Having instant access to this information allows TrackAbout customers to quickly and easily make better-informed decisions about their orders and shipments.

For example, this could provide more insight about customer demand and help you accurately calculate the likely number of containers you’ll need to meet it. Unnecessarily overordering spare containers erodes profits, while coming up short risks losing business and alienating customers.

Using our software to track returnable assets elevates your asset management strategy by taking over various tasks, such as automatically generating delivery information. That means fewer manual errors and greater efficiency for your workforce.

Tip #3: Maintain Your Assets

Taking good care of your cylinders and containers is the best way to ensure you increase their lifespan and limit avoidable expenses, like repairs or replacements.

TrackAbout helps plan your maintenance programs, making it easier to see when regular repairs and checkups are due. Gas cylinders, for example, need to be requalified every 5-10 years depending on the type of cylinder. If you own a large number of these assets, it’s easy to lose track.

Asset management software provides a handy reminder each time your assets are due for maintenance.

Tip #4: Understand the Risks and Benefits

Knowing the risks associated with poor asset management is key to avoiding them.

Here are some of the common risks that TrackAbout helps gas and chemical distributors steer clear of:

• Asset loss: Having real-time access to the location details about each of your returnable containers minimizes the risk of them going astray. 

• Safety risk: When transporting hazardous substances, such as chemicals, it's important to be able to cross-check the historic contents of each container to avoid unwanted consequences because of contamination.

• Profit loss: Being able to quickly view historic orders and deliveries involving each asset makes it easier to plan and ensure you're keeping the right number of containers in stock. It also guarantees timely maintenance, preventing the need for unnecessary expenditures on replacements.

Tip #5: Make Use of Your Data

Data is a hugely powerful part of any successful forward-thinking business. TrackAbout puts so much historic information readily at your fingertips, digitizes workflows, and can help save your business time, effort, and money.

Take time to familiarize yourself with our Tracking module, which provides an instant overview of all your assets, their contents, and status.

Make sure you’re also acquainted with the other TrackAbout modules available, which could be just the right fit for your specific asset management needs. For example, TrackAbout’s Truck Reconciliation & Manifest module facilitates inventory management by catching mistakes as they happen during delivery. Our Maintenance & Dynamic Workflows module enables advanced tracking and reporting on container maintenance, inspection and testing in a single system.

No matter the size of your business or number of assets you need to keep an eye on, our software maximizes returnable container utilization and gives you a competitive advantage.

If you want to learn more about how TrackAbout's software can help you elevate your asset management strategy, request a free demo with one of our industry experts.