At each stage of the cycle, asset management allows you to get the most from the asset. Here’s how organisations can manage each phase of the process.

Although some people consider procurement to be the first part of the asset lifecycle, in most cases, planning is the real first step. This is where you identify a requirement, determine the asset specification and secure the necessary budget. This might mean considering a range of different assets to do the job, taking into account factors like price, maintenance costs, and expected operational life, and doing a cost-benefit analysis. Because organisations are reliant on their assets to function effectively, planning ahead is an essential part of asset management. Stakeholders such as operations teams and finance specialists will weigh in at this stage.

This phase covers the purchasing, transportation, and installation of the asset in the facility. Depending on the scale and type of asset, this may be an expensive or lengthy process; vehicles or infrastructure assets may be cost-intensive in this phase, while smaller assets such as a hand-held tool or small piece of furniture are easier and cheaper. Safety checks and other preliminary checks may be conducted at this stage. An integrated purchasing solution will allow organisations to track assets seamlessly from planning to use through goods receipt.

Use or utilisation should be an asset’s longest lifecycle stage. In this phase, the organisation should optimise the use of the asset to maximise uptime and effectiveness. Management of assets in this stage includes tracking, auditing, reporting, and maintaining the assets. As time goes on, the asset might need upgrades and patch fixes to stay up to date.

Managing the maintenance of the asset requires deciding which type of maintenance to use: preventative, predictive, routine, or another strategy. Planning maintenance also means understanding the asset’s maintenance requirements and how frequently it will need to be maintained. Because maintenance can be expensive and time-consuming, it’s important to plan maintenance to occur at optimal times in the lifecycle of the asset to maximise efficiency.

Once the maintenance costs of the asset outweigh the total cost of a replacement, or the asset becomes obsolete, it’s time for disposal. This includes assessing the cost and manner of disposal. At this stage, an organisation will need to decide how best to dispose of the asset. This may involve selling, repurposing, recycling, or throwing away the asset, depending on its type. With certain assets, the disposal process may include dismantling the asset so it can be recycled in an environmentally friendly manner, or in the case of IT asset management, removing or transferring all data before disposal.

Then, the asset management lifecycle begins again with planning for a new asset.