Four Ways to Organize your Asset Hierarchy and Locate Assets

What is an asset hierarchy?

Assets in your CMMS are arranged in a hierarchal structure, kind of like folders and files are laid out on your computer. This gives an intuitive, visual layout to the assets in the CMMS, which also corresponds to the way they are laid out in your facility.  This way, even people who aren’t trained on how to use the software are able to find the asset they’re looking for, just by drilling down into the asset hierarchy.

Using asset categories

When equipment (or other assets) are entered into the system, users can identify an asset category for that piece of equipment in addition to a physical location.  This allows the user two ways of filtering assets: 1) by location 2) by the asset category, or what “type” of asset it is.

For instance, if you’re trying to locate a piece of HVAC machinery, say “Twin Fan Set”,  you can drill down via Main Facility > Roof > Twin Fan Set. About 3 clicks, and simple to do.

Or, you can select “HVAC” from the list of Asset categories, and choose/search the asset this way.

Program your own asset tag/code

The importance of having a good asset labelling convention is discussed here. If you have several assets with the same name, you need a quick way to distinguish them from each other that is a) easy to implement and b) easy for your maintenance staff to interpret.  Fiix allows you to add an asset labelling convention that is separate from the Name of the Asset, (you get both: an Asset Name, and an Asset Code).  Asset codes can be added  manually one at a time, or more than one via the import tool. For multiple asset import, set your CSV file up in excel and use the native excel functionality to increment your asset code. You could also program a convention for all assets you enter into the system via our API but this requires some programming experience.

All fields are searchable

Obviously you would expect some kind of search for a database program.  What makes Fiix’s search function so helpful, is that it lets you query a number of fields at the same time.  For instance, say I’m trying to find a particular CNC machine out of the 40 or so I have scattered around my Asset Hierarchy.  I can start the search by typing “cnc”, but then narrow it down further by adding more info I know about the machine.  I’ll add a bit from the description, the make, even part of the serial number.

What this design does is all for a very flexible process for identifying the asset you’re looking for.  You can drill down into the place it is located, filter by the asset category, distinguish it from similarly named assets with the Asset tag/code, and search all these things simultaneously using the live search.