Jupiter Fixed Assets Control Solution. Technical White Paper 2011

Transcription

1 Technical White Paper 2011

2 Table of Contents Table of Contents... 2 Introduction... 3 Making a Choice... 3 Pen and Paper:... 3 Database or Spreadsheet:... 3 Barcodes:... 3 Fixed Assets Control Life Cycle... 4 Prepare... 4 Barcode... 4 Scan... 4 Monitor and Audit... 5 Scenario of Operation... 5 System Features... 6 Administration Module... 6 Assets Build Up... 6 Customizing Assets Data Interface... 6 Users & Groups Management... 6 Security Levels... 6 Auditing Reports... 6 Remote Accessibility... 6 Centralized Management... 6 Client Module... 7 Assets Data Entry... 7 Barcode Generation and Printing... 7 Barcode Scanning... 7 Import Data... 7 Flag Items... 7 Descriptive Image... 8 Upload Documentation... 8 Monitoring & Tracking Reports... 8 Search Capabilities

3 Introduction Tracking fixed assets is an important concern for every organization. By definition, a fixed asset is any permanent object that a business uses internally test equipment, computers, laptops, mobile phones, spare parts, files, legal documents, inventory, medical equipment, and other expensive and difficult to replace items. While many employees utilize and access these assets, they ultimately belong to the company and must be accounted for. Making a Choice Having decided to implement an asset control solution, the next step is to select the most appropriate, cost-effective tool for your business. Over time, three approaches have evolved, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Pen and Paper: The most inexpensive way to track assets is the old-fashioned combination of pen and paper. This approach requires no training or upfront costs, but does not really deliver the benefits of true asset tracking. After all, this extremely manual, time-consuming process easily creates errors, may be illegible, is difficult to update and hard to manage. Bulky paper documents are frequently lost or destroyed and must be correctly re-filed each time someone removes the paperwork from a space-hogging filing cabinet. Database or Spreadsheet: Since most businesses already own these applications, typically there are no upfront costs associated with using a database such as Microsoft Access or a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel for asset tracking. These tools, although powerful, were not specifically designed to manage the complexities of tracking and managing assets. Just like pen and paper, using general office software is time-consuming and manual, easily creating errors or omissions. Barcodes: Well-established and with a proven track record in a diverse group of industries, barcodes are significantly more cost-effective than the two other approaches. In fact, a business can expect a return on its barcode investment within three to four months, an online report shows. Jupiter fixed assets control solution is a complete fixed asset database integrated with a handheld terminal used to scan read barcodes and a barcode printing device. Keep asset records up to date and periodically take a physical inventory of your fixed assets. Data fields include asset category, asset type, asset code, asset description, asset status, asset current location, asset previous location, cost center, asset exit date, barcode and unlimited number of user definable fields. 3

4 Fixed Assets Control Life Cycle Prepare Fixed assets preparation is the first step in your procedure. You will define the descriptive information related to each asset according to the requirements and business needs. The descriptive fields may include asset name, asset unique code, asset description and asset Location... etc. These fields will help in finding any asset, at any time. You are now having all your fixed assets information in one database. Barcode Prepare Monitor & Audit Barcode Scan Barcode labels are at the key to streamlining your fixed asset control process. The system is integrated with a barcode printer Zebra TLP2844 Desktop Printer for printing the fixed asset barcode labels. Print barcode labels for each asset according to its descriptive information, then attach it to your fixed assets such as computers, printers and furniture. The barcode label relates the physical asset with its corresponding information inside the system. Jupiter fixed assets control system comes with two options either to print the barcode label individually or print a batch of barcode labels according to certain criteria such as asset category, asset type or asset location etc. Scan Fixed Assets Control Solution Barcode Printing You can now streamline your fixed assets tracking process, through a fully automated process that eases, secures, and speedup the job. Jupiter fixed assets control system is integrated with a mobile computer with integrated barcode reader MX8 Handheld Mobile Computer used to scan the barcode labels to perform the physical tracking of the fixed assets. 4

5 The system have two features; to export a full list of the fixed assets descriptive information with their current status and location, and to import an updated list after performing the scanning process through the handled barcode scanner. Use Jupiter fixed assets control system to export the fixed assets registered information to be synchronized with the handheld barcode scanner. The synchronization process between MX8 Handheld Mobile Computer and Jupiter fixed asset control system is performed by using Microsoft ActiveSync. The physical tracking of the fixed assets is performed by defining the current location where the scanning process is currently performed in the handled barcode scanner, then scanning the barcode labels of the existing fixed assets. At last, you can review the fixed assets status after finishing the scanning process for each location. Finally, Use the import feature to feed up Jupiter fixed assets control system with the updated fixed assets information to be accessed by the responsible auditors. Monitor and Audit Once all the fixed assets information has been updated, system auditors can produce different reports that cover all changes made to the assets. Scenario of Operation Fixed Assets Control Solution - Scenario of Operation 5

6 System Features Administration Module Assets Build Up Through system administration module, assets can be categorized based on their nature and also according to the business needs. Customizing Assets Data Interface Through system administration module, it is allowed to avail different interfaces/views of the information for different user types according to their work nature. Users & Groups Management Administration module provides the capability to create users and groups and assign them to perform certain tasks while preventing them from performing others. Security Levels The system provides multiple security levels. Auditing Reports Administration module provides the capability to audit actions performed on specific asset or related to a certain user. Remote Accessibility The system is web based that can be accessed by authorized users from anywhere through standard web browsers. Centralized Management The system is based on one database that will hold data of assets in all departments, branches and warehouses. In addition, the system provides centralized management through which all administration and auditing functionalities like authentication, authorization, auditing, reporting and searching will be done through one interface. 6

7 Client Module Assets Data Entry For each fixed asset in the organization, responsible employee will be able to insert all its description information based on which a unique barcode will be generated for this asset. Fixed Assets Control Solution Asset description information Barcode Generation and Printing The system is integrated with the barcode printing device, through this integration a barcode for each fixed asset will be generated according to its descriptive information. Barcode Scanning The system is integrated with the handheld terminal used to scan read barcodes, so after each scanning process the captured information will be transformed to the system to update the saved record according to the actual status of the assets. Import Data The system offers simple way to import scanned data from the handheld scanning device into the backend monitoring system to update information of the existing assets. Flag Items For each asset, there is a flag reflecting its status (relocated, missing etc). The value of this field is automatically changed after each scanning process. 7

8 Descriptive Image Upload asset images for identification purposes. Upload Documentation System users can attach relative documentations to each asset like description, invoices, purchase orders and contracts. The system supports the following capturing methods: Scan physical document directly from within the system interface Importing electronic documents The system supports importing and viewing different types of documents as images (TIFF, GIFF, JPEG, JPG, BMP ), MS office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc...), multimedia files, PDF, TXT, HTML, etc. Monitoring & Tracking Reports The solution offers method of analyzing and extracting fixed asset information by providing a powerful, built-in report engine that provide a full range of standard and customized reports to meet all users needs. Predefined set of reports includes but not limited to the following: Total number of assets type per location Assets per department. Assets that have been relocated In addition to the readymade reports, the system provides the capability to build the required report through wizard interface. For each report, you may be able to define the following: Conditions criteria based on which this report will be displayed (more than one condition can be defined and aggregated with logical operators like And, OR, NOT, etc...) Output fields Report Result Each report will be created once and saved to be used by the end user. In addition, reports can be viewed on screen, sent to a printer or exported to business tools such as Microsoft Excel. Fixed Assets Control Solution List of Assets Report Search Capabilities The system offers powerful search capabilities where you can search for any type of information whether it is an indexing descriptive field, a combination between numerous fields, or the label key of the asset. 8