Inventory management solutions?
kbowen0188
Member Posts: 87 ■■□□□□□□□□
in Off-Topic
I currently work as a Help Desk Specialist/Computer Tech for a local bank. We staff around 1000 employees. Currently, inventory is ordered by a single person on an "as-needed" basis. This person (manager) orders the equipment when a request is put in for it. A monitor goes bad? Order one. He usually tries to keep a couple extras of each product in stock, but has no real way of tracking this. It is eyeballed. There is no accountability either. Once a computer goes out on the field, that is it. There is no record of it being purchased (besides receipts) and no record of where that specific computer is assigned to. We give the computer a name/tag based on a company naming scheme, but that is it.
The techs have total control over purchased hardware and there is once again no accountability. If I say a user had two monitors that suddenly died, it is up to me to dispose of those monitors and replace them with new ones from what is in stock. There are currently about five techs.
This, in my mind, is a nightmare. Unless I am not seeing something, we have no idea how much we spend on specific pieces of hardware. We have a generalized "15000 dollars on computer hardware this year" but no true reports to be generated. All sorts of schemes could be used to get an employee or tech some free computer equipment since there is no record of it.
In my ideal world, we should be able to answer the following question almost immediately after consulting documentation and databases.
Can we reconcile the list of purchased hardware and licensed software with all computers and licensed software currently on the network?
The current answer is a resounding no. Am I right to feel frustration with this? Our manager was recently let go of so this is the perfect opportunity for me to step up, take the reins and show some initiative. I want to design an inventory management system.
Has anyone else here ever designed or experienced a particularly stream-lined, effective inventory solution? We don't need every last thing documented (mice, for instance) but it'd be pretty nice to know how many of these expensive monitors and desktops/laptops we have in production.
The techs have total control over purchased hardware and there is once again no accountability. If I say a user had two monitors that suddenly died, it is up to me to dispose of those monitors and replace them with new ones from what is in stock. There are currently about five techs.
This, in my mind, is a nightmare. Unless I am not seeing something, we have no idea how much we spend on specific pieces of hardware. We have a generalized "15000 dollars on computer hardware this year" but no true reports to be generated. All sorts of schemes could be used to get an employee or tech some free computer equipment since there is no record of it.
In my ideal world, we should be able to answer the following question almost immediately after consulting documentation and databases.
Can we reconcile the list of purchased hardware and licensed software with all computers and licensed software currently on the network?
The current answer is a resounding no. Am I right to feel frustration with this? Our manager was recently let go of so this is the perfect opportunity for me to step up, take the reins and show some initiative. I want to design an inventory management system.
Has anyone else here ever designed or experienced a particularly stream-lined, effective inventory solution? We don't need every last thing documented (mice, for instance) but it'd be pretty nice to know how many of these expensive monitors and desktops/laptops we have in production.
Comments
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Qord
Member Posts: 632 ■■■■□□□□□□
I'd say to check out Lansweeper and Spiceworks. They are both pretty good for network inventory and they are both free. -
kbowen0188
Member Posts: 87 ■■□□□□□□□□
I should have mentioned that the company uses Track-it! as a software solution for Help Desk ticketing, and this software includes something of an Inventory Management utility. At the same time, we have several devices that are off the network. These sort of network inventory applications don't also track monitors and off-network scanners/printers/computers, do they? From what I can find, a barcode system is the best solution for that.
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Qord
Member Posts: 632 ■■■■□□□□□□
Correct, if it's off network then the network inventory software won't catch and track it. One of the things I like about lansweeper is the ability to enter a lot of things manually. We use that aspect of it to add things like high dollar monitors and non shared,usb connected printers. While this doesn't keep track of these devices, it does provide some accountability for them.