Anyone else have a tune running through your head right now…….Oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh……Sorry I couldn’t resist!!!

For the past few weeks we have been focusing on the rise of Equipment Inventory & Tagging and how important it is to proper facility asset management and preventative maintenance planning.

Today I want to focus on the “T”, the tagging piece.  Lots of organizations have spreadsheets with equipment information on it.  However, without a tag on it, figuring out if you are looking at the right piece of equipment is difficult.  You pretty much have to find and read the name plate to be 100% sure.  

If there are three pumps in a Mechanical Room, which one is Pump #1?  Logic would say that you go from left to right (since that is generally how most of us read (at least in North America).  However, what is the one in the middle is the oldest and was there first, that could be #1.  Alternatively, if left closest to the door of the room, maybe it was called #1 by the person that created the list.  You can see how this can get very confusing and result in wasted time, or improper work being performed.  

The best way to ensure that you are doing the work on the proper piece of equipment is to add a tag to the equipment so that it can be easily and quickly identified properly.  Applying a tag properly will only marginally increase the effort it takes to gather Make, Model, Serial #, etc. for each of your pieces of equipment.  The small incremental effort will have big returns!

As technology has advanced, most asset tags now have a bar code and/or a QR code on it (more on that next week), which makes the tags even more useful in terms of linking to your Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS).  

Trying to build a detailed and functional equipment inventory without tagging the equipment while you are at it is like running into a fight with one hand tied behind your back.  You can do it, but you are probably going to come away bruised!!!  So why don’t you slap a tag on it!!!!