In-house Surplus Asset Management

Transcription

1 September In-house Surplus Asset Management Author Ramya Vijay 1 Copyright Beroe Inc, All Rights Reserved

2 Abstract / Business Case Asset management is extremely important for companies of all industries as it would help reduce the spending on lab assets and improve the equipment utilization. The most common approach of dealing with surplus equipment is selling it in the secondary market with the help of vendors. There are various suppliers providing surplus asset management services to large pharmaceutical and healthcare companies which include identifying the idle equipment, transporting the equipment, maintenance and selling the equipment. The suppliers also provide services such as internal equipment redeployment, valuation and assessment. However, very few companies have an dedicated internal equipment management team for continuous assessment and deployment of equipment. The whitepaper will discuss in details the advantages of internal asset management team, the working procedure and cost savings that can be achieved. Problem Statement / Introduction 1. All the pharmaceutical companies are under intense pressure to produce lower-cost drugs. Hence all the available methods in reducing costs should be considered and worked upon by the R&D team within the company. In cases where production site gets closed, there are plenty of surplus equipment left. Also, at sites where production is less compared to other sites, new production equipment is not required and internal deployment of equipment should be followed. Unorganized equipment is an additional expense for the company and hence such equipment should be analyzed regularly for redeployment within the company or sold out for auction. Hence, there is a dire need for a dedicated team to monitor the machine utilization and understand the secondary equipment market to take a decision on the equipment 2 Copyright Beroe Inc., All Rights Reserved

3 Surplus Asset Management Equipment which are no longer required for a specific purpose or in a specific location are called surplus equipment. Low and medium end equipment are generally disposed whereas high-end equipment such as mass spectrometry and chromatography are sold to small pharmaceutical companies or academic institutes. Need for Asset Management: Improved visibility ensuring assets are always in the right place at the right time - is an overarching result of asset tracking, which in turn, delivers significant cost reduction benefits including improved productivity, lower costs and fewer errors. For instance, using auto ID technology, any assets can effectively be traced and, armed with the right information, process efficiency or quality can be improved, inventory levels or repurchase rates controlled and fleet sizes reduced. In turn, the return on assets employed can be significantly higher than originally forecast. Fig.1: Various methods for management of surplus equipment Internal Asset Management Process 3 Copyright Beroe Inc., All Rights Reserved

4 Fig.2: Internal asset management process Internal Team Structure: Asset Valuation (Financial team) The team that arrives at the valuation figures of the equipment at the end of every quarter. The team mostly consists of people from the finance department. Asset Maintenance & Overhauling Fig.3: Internal asset management team structure This is done by the team, internal to the company or could be outsourced to the suppliers. Both the models are prevalent in the industry. However, an internal team will aid in continuous maintenance and hence can increase the efficiency of the equipment by minimum of 25%. IT team Operations management surrounding maintaining asset management To implement a measurement process of internal asset management, an IT team that builds technology to track is required. This could be outsourced by technology from suppliers. In most cases, vendor proving the IT system required will provide maintenance, but in such cases the continuous monitoring is affected. In some cases, the company can have their own IT team for building the technology while having vendor support for maintenance alone. Therefore the most effective method would be to have dedicated team for 2-3 persons working continuously with the vendor. Asset disposal team This team deals with selling the asset or disposing it off considering the environmental regulations. Abiding by environment regulations is very important in USA and Europe. 4 Copyright Beroe Inc., All Rights Reserved

5 Asset usage measurement & approval Asset Usage measurement and Approval team is a new concept being followed by few pharmaceutical companies currently. This team tracks the time of usage, person using, the levels of utilization and how can utilization levels be improved or decreased by using cost effective ways is being done. This team also tracks the depreciation of the equipment. Though, usage of equipment is being measured in all companies, a dedicated team is most important, in order to ensure improved efficiency. This team is interlinked with all other teams in asset management. Assessment is done on daily or weekly basis from the purchase of the equipment. Equipment Redeployment: Equipment redeployment depends on the location of the R&D centers and is the responsibility of the asset usage and approval team. The equipment are redeployed within a particular region or area. The team estimates the cost incurred to the company in redeployment of the equipment between centers. If the value of the equipment is minimum 10% more than the cost incurred to the company by redeployment, then the team approves the redeployment of the equipment. Case Study: A major European pharmaceutical company introduced asset usage and approval team in their internal asset management team in few R&D locations within Europe. The internal asset management had partnership with vendors for IT systems and for equipment disposal. The asset usage teams of few R&D centers were linked for continuous updates. It was noticed that, equipment deployment increased by 5% while disposal of the decreased. Fig.4: Internal asset management by a major pharmaceutical company in Copyright Beroe Inc., All Rights Reserved

6 Conclusion: It is widely accepted that asset management is a complex and specialist area. One which can be a source of strategic advantages, but also one in which the implications of misjudgment can be extremely serious. Not only from a financial perspective, also in many areas of corporate activity. In order to exploit the advantages available in asset management, and ensure their responsible stewardship, a company needs to invest more in an in-house team with various sub-departments. The goals of various teams need to be clearly outlined and continuously checked. With an well-structured in-house team, the efficiency of the team is expected to increase which leads to a cost savings of approximately 5%. 6 Copyright Beroe Inc., All Rights Reserved

7 Industry Speak/Acknowledgement Experts: Mr. Arsoka Consultant, Operations research, Supply chain Management, Marketing - Director Metadata Industry to be impacted Pharmaceutical Food, Beverage & Tobacco Metal, Mining & Minerals Chemicals Oil & Gas Personal Products Bank & Financial Services Hi-tech Domain to be impacted Lab equipment Add Domain name Add Domain name Add Domain name Add Domain name Add Domain name Add Domain name Add Domain name Category to be impacted Lab equipment Lab consumables Lab Supplies Add Category name Add Category name Add Category name Add Category name Add Category name 7 Copyright Beroe Inc., All Rights Reserved

8 Focus Area Sourcing Opportunity Supplier Intelligence Technology Substitute Opportunity Supply chain Risk Input Cost Price Outlook Sustainability Keywords Used Lab Equipment and Consumables, Asset Management, INhouse, Internal Team References set%20management.pdf 8 Copyright Beroe Inc., All Rights Reserved

9 About the Author Ramya Vijay Senior Research Analyst Ramya Vijay is a research analyst with the Lab assets and operations domain. Her professional role comprises of efficient project execution, along with authoring numerable white papers and articles. Ramya maintains an excellent rapport with her team players and also devotes her time to CSR activities. Shifting Educational Qualification: B.E (Bio-Medical Engineering) Disclaimer: Strictly no photocopying or redistribution is allowed without prior written consent from Beroe Inc. The information contained in this publication was derived from carefully selected sources. Any opinions expressed reflect the current judgment of the author and are subject to change without notice. Beroe Inc accepts no responsibility for any liability arising from use of this document or its contents. 9 Copyright Beroe Inc., All Rights Reserved For more information, please contact info@beroe-inc.com.