How many assets does your organization own? Where are they located, and what’s their current operating status? If you can’t answer these questions, it might be time to rethink your asset inventory management strategy. A well-planned asset inventory management system can help you answer these questions and save countless hours of unplanned downtime, wasted labor, and lost productivity. In this article, we’ll talk about what asset inventory management is and what it looks like in practice. We’ll also discuss specific ways asset inventory management can transform your plant.
What Is Asset Inventory Management?
Asset inventory management combines two critical practices: asset management and inventory management. In short, asset inventory management means creating a catalog of all your organization’s assets.
But, of course, it doesn’t stop there. Your organization isn’t static, and neither is your asset inventory. That’s why a good asset inventory management system tracks both the movement and location of your assets throughout their lifecycles. Furthermore, asset inventory management also tracks asset condition and utilization, helping you stay on top of exactly how and where your assets are being used and their overall condition.
What Is an Inventory Asset?
An inventory asset is any item that helps your team carry out work. Most of the time, asset means a piece of machinery, a vehicle, or a device (like a tablet or computer). But an asset is any piece of equipment a company uses to produce its products, deliver services, and stay up and running.
As you can imagine, the larger the operation, the harder it is to keep track of assets. For example, an agribusiness that runs a string of orchards and ranches must maintain a large fleet of vehicles. And keeping tabs on the location, condition, and utilization of each vehicle can be a major challenge.
That’s where asset inventory management comes in. Asset inventory management keeps track of all the assets a company owns so that they are available whenever and wherever they are needed.
What Is Asset Inventory Management?
An asset inventory management system is a combination of hardware, software, and protocols, all with the same goal: to track all your assets and their availability. A dependable asset inventory management system makes it easy for your various teams to input data and check on the locations of assets. Ideally, your asset inventory management system should be easy to customize, as every operation has unique needs.
But before we get into how asset inventory management works in practice, let’s first take a minute to understand a few related terms.
What’s the Difference Between Asset Management and Inventory Management?
Asset management focuses on managing the long-term, high-value items you use to generate business value. It includes tasks like maximizing ROI, managing asset lifecycle from acquisition to disposal, and ensuring maintenance is properly completed.
Inventory management focuses on items that a company purchases or creates, stores, and sells. It includes consumables, raw materials, and finished goods. Inventory management ensures the right stock or items are available at the right time, avoids overstocking, and optimizes ordering and storage costs.
Inventory is a broad term. Inventory items are all the parts and materials that go into making a final product or crafting any deliverable. Intermediate products or works in progress (WIP) also count as inventory, as do unsold finished products. And, of course, all the MRO supplies that are necessary to keep your assets running smoothly are part of your inventory.
There is a great deal of overlap between asset inventory management and inventory management. Fortunately, a CMMS can handle both, letting you track your assets and spare parts in the same central database.
Benefits of an Asset Inventory Management System
Asset inventory management ensures that plants and facilities have up-to-date inventories of all their assets — the first step to building a strong asset lifecycle management system.
Asset inventory management can help your organization:
- Improve supply chain management: Asset inventory management keeps track of the availability and location of critical maintenance parts and assets. This helps organizations avoid delays caused by stockouts or misplaced equipment, while providing real-time visibility into inventory levels to streamline ordering and optimize vendor management.
- Track asset utilization: By monitoring how often and how intensively assets are used, organizations can identify underutilized or overused equipment. This insight allows for better operational planning, ensures equipment is deployed efficiently, and helps extend the lifespan of valuable assets.
- Track the movement of assets across worksites: Asset inventory management enables organizations to track assets as they move between facilities or job sites. This ensures accountability, reduces the risk of loss or misplacement, and makes it easier to schedule maintenance or inspections at the right location and time.
- Improve budgeting and forecasting: Accurate asset records provide the data needed to plan capital expenditures, predict replacement cycles, and manage maintenance costs. Understanding the full lifecycle cost of assets — including repairs, consumables, and depreciation — supports more informed financial planning.
- Improve scheduling: With precise knowledge of asset availability, organizations can schedule maintenance, production, and project work more efficiently. This reduces downtime, ensures the right tools and parts are on hand, and prevents conflicts or delays in operations.
- Support proactive maintenance strategies: Maintaining a detailed asset inventory allows organizations to implement preventive and predictive maintenance programs. Knowing which assets are due for inspection, replacement, or upgrade helps reduce unplanned downtime and extends the life of critical equipment.
Best Practices for Asset Inventory Management
Managing assets effectively starts with knowing exactly what you have, where it’s located, and how it’s being used. Asset inventory management goes beyond simply keeping a list — it involves creating accurate, up-to-date records that inform better decisions, reduce downtime, and extend the life of critical equipment.
Following these best practices creates a reliable foundation for maintenance planning, budgeting, and compliance, helping your assets deliver maximum value throughout their lifecycle.
1. Maintain Accurate and Complete Data
Keep a detailed asset register listing all of your assets. Record information like make, model, serial number, purchase date, location, responsible department, and photos or digital tags such as barcodes. Use consistent naming conventions and categories to avoid duplicates or confusion.
2. Integrate With Maintenance Systems
Use a CMMS to link asset records directly to work orders, maintenance history, and parts inventory for a single source of truth.
3. Track Location and Movement
Update records and log transfers between worksites or departments in real time.
4. Audit and Verify Regularly
Compare on-site inspections with digital records to catch missing, misplaced, or damaged assets. Assign each asset to a responsible person or department and limit CMMS editing roles to trained personnel.
5. Use Data for Smarter Decisions
Use your CMMS to track hours of use, run cycles, or other metrics to identify under- or overused equipment. Record acquisition date, warranty details, depreciation, and replacement schedules for better budgeting. Use data on repair frequency, downtime, and cost of ownership to guide repair vs. replace decisions.
Using a CMMS simplifies asset inventory management by collecting all information in a single source. Anyone across the company, from technicians to CEOs, can access the data and see asset status, history, location, and other information useful for decision-making and asset management.
How to Pick the Best Asset Inventory Management Software
Choosing the right software is critical to getting the most out of your asset inventory management strategy. The right tool should not only track assets but also make the process more efficient, accurate, and connected to the rest of your operations. Here are some key features to look for:
Ease of use: A clean, intuitive interface makes it simple for your team to update records and find information without additional training.
Real-time tracking: Capabilities like barcoding, RFID, or GPS ensure assets can be tracked accurately across worksites or departments. Software with interactive floor plans can help track and locate assets and allow you to easily access asset status from a floor map.
Mobile access: Field teams should be able to update asset records directly from mobile devices, keeping data current and cutting down on paperwork. Offline mobile access is also ideal, since field teams may not always have access to internet connectivity.
Customizable reporting: Look for flexible dashboards and reporting tools that let you analyze utilization, maintenance costs, and lifecycle data to support better decision-making. The best software will allow you to easily customize reports to the specific needs of your organization, without having to go to a developer for help.
Integration: If you already use other types of software for accounting, building management, production management, or other tasks, look for asset inventory management software that can integrate with your existing software. This capability keeps departments connected across the company and makes it easier to share data, eliminate duplicate entries, and streamline workflows.
Scalability: The software should grow with your organization, supporting more assets, users, and sites without major disruptions.
Security and compliance: Built-in controls help protect sensitive asset data and ensure compliance with industry regulations or audit requirements.
The best asset inventory management software will fit seamlessly into your workflows, reduce manual effort, and give you reliable insights into the health and value of your assets.
Using eMaint for Asset Inventory Management
A CMMS like eMaint gives you instant visibility into both asset location and status. And any data you put into the system is automatically updated across the platform, so your teams always have access to the information they need, regardless of location. This makes eMaint an excellent choice for any organization with multiple locations or remote teams.
But eMaint gives you a bigger-picture view, too. The software can help you streamline your asset inventory, tracking, and asset lifecycle management programs so that you have all the data you need right at your fingertips.
eMaint shows you your asset maintenance histories, current condition monitoring data, and spare parts inventory — all on one platform. You can also use eMaint reporting functions to drill down and view more detailed information for any of your assets.
Having all the data you need directly at your fingertips opens the door to greater efficiency, better decision-making, and more effective forecasting. That’s why eMaint helps create a sure path to improving productivity, lowering costs, and reducing unplanned downtime.
