WhereNet Corp., the provider of wireless location and communications solutions for managing mobile resources, have released survey results that reveal shortcomings of current asset management techniques, associated costs, and desired solutions for managing critical supply chain assets. )
More than 70 percent of the survey respondents still rely on manual techniques to locate and track physical assets, and 100 percent of the respondents indicated that their asset management data is inaccurate due to this manual process. In addition, 64 percent of the respondents reported that their companies are forced to conduct manual searches at least once a day to locate assets or inventory.
"These survey results further demonstrate the need for total asset visibility within end-user environments. Enterprises of all sizes are challenged with the 'black hole' syndrome in their daily operations; if they had real-time data about the location and status of all their assets, their overall operation would be, by orders of magnitude, much more efficient,” said Michael J. Liard, senior AIDC/RFID analyst, Venture Development Corp. "While passive RFID technology has made strides in providing improved location information, the fact remains that most enterprise systems and end users don't have access to real-time data about their high-value mobile assets. Companies are increasingly requiring wireless, constant connectivity solutions, such as those offered by WhereNet, that drive new applications to transform their business.
"The survey findings echo the feedback that we receive from the field every day -enterprises are looking for solutions to better manage their resources and to cut operational costs, reduce inventory, and automate manual processes," said Matt Armanino, vice president of business development for WhereNet. "From distribution centers to intermodal facilities to automotive factories, workers and information systems are fundamentally disconnected from the mobile assets that they are trying to manage. WhereNet bridges this data divide with an automated solution that provides constant connectivity and status information about every critical asset across the supply chain.
Survey Highlights
The survey highlights a host of issues with current asset management methods, including significant labour costs and expenses incurred due to a lack of real-time information about inventory and assets in the supply chain.
70 percent of respondents indicated that their companies still use manual labor - either through physical searches or bar code scanning --- to locate and track inventory or high-value assets
100 percent of respondents admitted that their data capture information is inaccurate due to human input error, improper scans, or missed scans
100 percent of respondents reported that the latency associated with current inventory systems results in the incorrect location of inventory (This often occurs because by the time the asset/inventory is located, scanned, and downloaded into an inventory management or enterprise system, its "original" status has changed.)
64 percent of respondents reported that operations personnel perform at least one search per day for inventory/assets, with 27 percent reporting more than 10 searches per day
47 percent of respondents indicated that each search to locate an item can take up to one hour to complete
33 percent of respondents spend more than $50,000 annually in labour alone trying to locate lost assets
73 percent of respondents agreed that the ideal asset/inventory tracking system would enable their company to:
Have real-time visibility of all critical assets/inventory in yards, distribution centres, ports, intermodal facilities, etc.
Reduce the amount of inventory in the supply chain, thereby decreasing losses due to overstocking
Trim labour costs associated with managing inventory, transportation assets, and manual inventory audits
Results of the asset management survey suggest several trends. Operations and IT managers and executives agreed that they could significantly streamline their operations if they had real-time connectivity to the assets that they are tasked with managing on a daily basis. Due to latency and human input error, current data collection processes and systems have proven to be bottlenecks for enterprises trying to reduce inventory, increase throughput, and optimise their supply chains.
Survey Methodology
Focused on managing assets in industrial manufacturing and transportation and logistics environments, nearly 50 operations managers, engineers, and IT executives from some of the world's largest corporations completed the survey. WhereNet collected electronic responses from participants spanning more than 10 industries, with 35 percent of the responses coming from transportation and logistics industry professionals. Fifty percent of the respondents were VP level or above, and 28 percent represented companies that have average annual revenues greater than $1 billion.
