Reading Uni halves costs with asset tracking

The University of Reading has slashed insurance premiums for equipment by 49 per cent by using an asset management system.

The university, which is a well-known centre of learning for agriculture, meteorology and business, previously used a growing set of spreadsheets to manage its assets. This meant that month-end and year-end reporting procedures were becoming increasingly labour intensive. In response to the problem, the university opted for the implementation of Asset4000 from Real Asset Management.

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The university's capital accountant, Simon Mealor, said it wanted a fixed-asset system that could be "implemented centrally and used remotely by all departments".

A key benefit of the systems is that it helps avoid over-insuring, paying the appropriate premiums.

Other pluses are it helps the university comply with auditor requirements and can be used as a disaster recovery tool in the event of a fire by accurately listing what equipment is held by which department.

The move is in line with the university's strategy of transferring ownership of resources to department heads and the sharing of resources across departments to reduce duplication and under utilisation of university equipment.