Companies leverage technology and build systems and controls to monitor the assets that are an integral part of the their day-to-day operations. These assets are used every day. Their location is known. If they're not functioning properly, they are quickly repaired. And, if these assets are damaged beyond repair, they are certainly replaced. These are the 'easy' assets to manage. People interact with these assets on an almost constant basis. Think vehicles, machining equipment, heavy tools.
Now, think about the assets within your enterprise that have little or no interaction with people. Think about assets that are located in far-flung locations that rarely receive visitation. Think about assets that are located in inconvenient and out-of-the-way physical locations throughout enterprise facilities. These assets--from air conditioning units to pipelines to scattered inventory--are a major management challenge. And, the challenge of managing these assets raises two serious problems for large enterprises. The first is strictly from an operational standpoint. If you don't know the location or condition of an asset, how can you properly optimize its usage? The second problem arises as enterprises attempt to conform to the rules governing Sarbanes-Oxley financial reporting. To properly account for the depreciation of an asset, for instance, a company must know the condition of that asset.
Source: Integrated Solutions, http://www.integratedsolutionsmag.com