Asset Tags and Inventory System

[Landmine]

I finally talked my company into investing into a few hundred asset tags and putting together an inventory system to track them.

Can anyone post what they have used in the past and their success and failures? At this point I'm not sure what kind of inventory tracker to go with, any recommendations?

 

[Spidey329]

I finally talked my company into investing into a few hundred asset tags and putting together an inventory system to track them.

Can anyone post what they have used in the past and their success and failures? At this point I'm not sure what kind of inventory tracker to go with, any recommendations?

There's a lot of free (opensource) Ticket / Support systems that have asset tracking. I worked for a huge huge corporation and what we did was each room had a location tag and each asset over X value had an asset tag. When an item moved into that room, it was tagged to that location tag.

Every tag had a barcode, so there would be yearly inventory scans with a handheld barcode scanner.

For the tags themselves, I've used the weathershield polyester (vinyl) laserjet printable ones from Avery (1"x3" or whatever standard label size is). They're not the cheapest, but they don't smudge and last years with no issues.

If you want a tag that "voids" when you peal it, that's a tad more difficult. I don't think it's worth it though because the tag should be tied to the hardware serial (mobo/etc). The "voided" part rubs off really easy. So it's a waste of money in my opinion. No tag will prevent theft. I was just told by an old co-worker that the aforementioned company I used to work for had a technician steal over $100k worth of computers during the span of a year. So yeah, those tags do jack **** in the scope of things.

I primarily use asset tracking for:
- Easy identification
- Tying the system to software licenses / hardware serials / etc.
- Tying the system to history (issues, parts replacements, etc.)
- Tying the system to a general location
- Accounting (reports of how many of what, etc)

It's way easier for someone to phone in and give you the tag on their computer, IE: "A0001" then it is to try and get them to read you a serial #. You can also name the machine the tag, so it makes remote management easier too.

 

[ARCHiTEKK]

I finally talked my company into investing into a few hundred asset tags and putting together an inventory system to track them.

Can anyone post what they have used in the past and their success and failures? At this point I'm not sure what kind of inventory tracker to go with, any recommendations?

Just to narrow things down a bit, what type of company is it? and what kind of inventory are you exactly looking to track, because different systems have varying benefits depending on the inventory being tracked.

 

[Landmine]

It is a mechanical company (HVAC). We want to track cell phones, laptops, desktops and tablets.

Thank you both for the input so far.