What Is HAM: Hardware Asset Management?

There’s depth to asset management. If you’re an experienced entrepreneur, business manager or have spent a considerable amount of time managing assets, you’d know it has its technicalities. There’s a lot more to it than just jotting down an item’s name and value and storing it away forever. 

Although asset tracking can be made much easier by using asset management software, you still need to learn a thing or two when you’re new to it. This includes the many terms and abbreviations that have developed over the years. One of these is HAM (Hardware Asset Management), among many others such as AM (Asset Management), ITAM (IT Asset Management), and RFID asset tracking. 

In this blog post, we’ll discover more about HAM, what it really is and all that it involves. In the end, you’ll also come across how itemit lets your business maximise hardware asset management benefits.

Before we define hardware asset management, it’s worthwhile to explore what your hardware assets are. As the name suggests, these are all physical items that are related to IT. In other words, all physical items that can be connected to a computer device, wirelessly or otherwise, fall into the hardware category. 

Not to mention that these are physical IT assets that your business owns. Any rented or borrowed hardware is not an asset. Before we move forward, let’s look at some examples of hardware assets for greater clarity. These include but are not limited to the following: 

Computers

• Desktops

• Laptops

• Workstations

• Mobile Phones

• Tablets and other handheld devices

Removable Media

• USB sticks
• DVDs

Network Hardware

• Servers
• Routers
• Hubs
• Cables
• Firewalls

Peripherals

• Screens
• Printers
• Scanners
• Keyboards
• Mice
• Copiers

Hardware asset management is a subcategory of the wider IT asset management. It pertains to tracking your hardware assets for a range of essential details. This includes the asset’s ID, location, valuation, condition, asset issues, maintenance details, date of acquisition, assignee and more. 

Asset management is a continuous process of recording all relevant information about your assets in an asset register. This means you have all the information you need to make better business decisions. This is where itemit comes in. 

itemit is one of the most advanced, but easy-to-use, asset tracking software that’ll help you track your hardware with ease. We let you create unique asset profiles for each item through an intuitive mobile app. You can use these asset profiles to store all the asset information you want in a neat and organised manner. So whenever you need to lookup an asset’s details, it’s only a few touches away in the asset register.

The first step would be to have the right asset management tools on hand. itemit is a great all-in-one solution that can help you fulfil all your asset tracking needs from fixed asset management to IT asset management. Once you’ve got it, the action begins by adding your hardware assets to create the asset register.

Adding a piece of hardware to your hardware asset register is as simple as ABC. All you need to do is push the plus icon on the homepage to add a new asset. itemit will immediately take you to a brand new asset profile where you can add different asset details.

We recommend that you get multiple users to add the hardware they use rather than have one person track all items. Distributing the task this way is much more efficient.

Chances are that your business uses multiple hardware assets that are identical to each other. For instance, your employees might all use similar-looking screens or keyboards. Things can get confusing when you’ve got to differentiate identical-looking hardware from each other. 

Surely, there has to be a better way than having each employee mark their devices with a coloured marker. Asset tags are great for this. These are QR code labels that give each device a unique identity and links the physical thing with its virtual profile.

itemit makes it easy for you to track every change as it happens in real-time. For instance, if a computer was moved from one location to another, we update its location automatically as soon as its asset tag is scanned. Not just that, but every other detail from maintenance to assignee can be updated in just a few seconds via our streamlined app.

It’s time to reap HAM benefits. With an accurate and up-to-date asset register always by your side, you’re empowered to make educated business decisions. It helps you increase workplace productivity, reduce losses, maximise asset life cycles, bust ghost assets and much more. 

Versatile and scalable, itemit’s asset tracking software is the simplest solution for your HAM needs. To learn more about how your business can benefit from our app, drop us an email at team@itemit.com. We are always at the ready to assist you with any queries you may have. 

Alternatively, you can also choose to take itemit’s asset register out on a test drive with our free 14-day trial. Fill in the form below and test out its features today!

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or, download the itemit app to get started