Find it back in minutes. Not in hours.
Someone walks around, someone makes calls, someone just buys it again because waiting costs more than ordering. Company assets rarely really disappear, they just cannot be found. STOCKflow turns searching into a targeted action.
We first measure how much time searching costs today. Without that number, any result afterwards is an opinion.
Sound familiar?
With assets the problem is rarely the purchase. It is the time that goes into finding them back. That plays out in technical services and in rental, and anywhere tools and carriers go around.
- Tools do not come back and nobody knows who had them last.
- Equipment sits at the wrong department and turns up months later.
- The periodic stock count takes days and is out of date the week after.
- Spare units sit around because waiting costs more than buying another one.
- For inspection or maintenance status there is no way to find when it expired.
- Roll containers and crates go missing in the chain and get written off.
What it costs
What searching for equipment costs per year
Employees
Minutes searching per day
Working days
Per year
958 hours
Calculated with euros per hour, and with the share of the theoretical gain you actually achieve:
- Conservative
- 383 hours17,250 euros per year
- Expected
- 575 hours25,875 euros per year
- Potential
- 767 hours34,500 euros per year
Worked example based ontwenty-five employees searching ten minutes a day on average, over 230 working days. That is one minute in every fifty of a working day. Not a measurement at a customer. The numbers are adjustable: put your own situation in and the outcome follows along.
How finding things back works
Two things at once: knowing where something was last seen, and then being able to find it on purpose.
01 / Every item its own label
A tag with a unique number, chosen for the material. For tools and small metal objects there are separate labels; which one works comes out of a test.
02 / Record the last sighting
At issue, at a doorway or during a walk with the handheld. After that you know where something was and when, even without anything watching permanently.
03 / Search on purpose
In the app you pick the item and the handheld runs hotter as you get closer. A half hour hunt becomes walking down one aisle.
What RFID does and does not do with assets
What RFID does and does not do with assets
Wel
- Find items on purpose within a room or zone, with hotter and colder
- Zone recognition: which part of the building this was seen in
- The last sighting: where, when, at which action
- Register issue and return in one action, without a list
- Rental as its own flow: issue, term, return, including a partial return
- Maintenance and repair: work order, inspection with measured values, and the parts to match
- An interval per item: after so many hours, kilometers or months the maintenance comes back
- History per item: which action when, and where it was at the time
Niet
- An exact real time location on a map, the way a tracking system with batteries does
- Track items that have left the building, unless there are reading points there too
- Guarantee without a test that a key ring or a small metal tool reads well
- Report that something is gone, if the process has no reading moment
This is the most important expectation to set straight up front. RFID is not a real time map with dots. It is finding things on purpose plus a last sighting, and for most hunts that is exactly enough. Anyone who needs dots on a map needs a different and considerably more expensive system, and we would rather say that now than afterwards.
What changes in practice
Tools that are there in the morning
The crew starts by working, not by searching. Whatever was taken yesterday is on a name, so you know who to go to.Issue without a list
The bin passes the reader and the issue is posted. Nobody has to sign off or type in a line.Maintenance that reports itself
An interval per item, so the inspection comes to you. No folder nobody opens and no device that just slips through.Finding it back instead of reordering
An asset that is not gone but misplaced is one you do not buy again. That is the item with the shortest payback period.
Does this fit your situation?
With small numbers of expensive assets a good agreement often beats technology.
- Size
- 25 to 500 employees
- Items
- From roughly one hundred items to track
- Process
- Equipment that circulates between people or locations
- Material
- Metal works, but needs a specific label
How we prove it: a small, paid Proof of Value
One asset category, one location, a limited group of users. We measure time spent searching and find rate before and after.
Scope
- One asset category or carrier type
- One location or department
- Temporary labels, chosen per material
- Searching with a handheld by a limited group of users
- Time spent searching and find rate before and after, plus the exceptions
Go or no-go
After the test period you know how much time spent searching really came off and which share of the items reads reliably. If part of it turns out not to work, the small metal tools for example, that goes in the report and you decide on that basis.
What you are probably thinking
Can you see exactly where everything is in real time?
No, and anyone who promises that with passive RFID is not telling the whole story. What you get is the last sighting plus searching on purpose: you know which zone something was seen in and the handheld then takes you there. For the vast majority of hunts that is enough. If you really want dots on a floor plan, you need active tags with batteries and that is a different project with a different price.
Our tools are metal, does that work?
Not with an ordinary label. There are tags made specially for metal, with a spacer in between. Those work, but the read range is shorter and the price higher. With small tools and keys the outcome differs per object, so there we simply test it. If something does not read reliably, that goes in the Proof of Value report.
Does this gain enough at our size?
Run the numbers yourself first. With twenty-five people searching ten minutes a day it adds up to almost a thousand hours a year, but with five people and a well ordered workshop that is a very different story. If the sum is too thin, we say so and it stops there.