Asset Management Case Studies

Tracking Assets at Edith Cowan University

Organisation:	Edith Cowan University
Industry:	Education
Location:	Perth, Australia

Edith Cowan University

Edith Cowan University (ECU) is located in Perth, Western Australia. ECU’s enrolments exceed 3,000 with students originating from more than 80 countries. Today it is Western Australia’s second largest university. The University has four metropolitan campuses in Churchlands, and a regional campus in Bunbury.

The Issue

Like many, ECU has been continually striving to keep accurate records of its complete asset base. Assets were managed by the individual Faculties or Business Service Areas in varying spreadsheet based formats. These asset registers did not always exist, and where they did exist, were often incomplete or their accuracy doubtful.

There was limited use of bar-coding technology for asset auditing or record updating. It was also difficult for the University’s Finance department to gauge the range and depth of asset information on those assets without a centralised asset database.

The Solution

Hardcat has been progressively rolled out to ECU's campuses and faculties. ECU are utilising Hardcat’s Core and Barcoding modules in conjunction with a number of Symbol SPT1800 portable barcode scanners.

ECU’s Senior Finance Officer – Fixed Assets, Mr Greg Gibbard, was the main sponsor of the project. And he sees Hardcat as a valuable tool for improving the management of ECU’s fixed asset and budget accountability.

The Benefits

The ongoing rollout of Hardcat at Western Australia’s Edith Cowan University (ECU) has reached a major milestone recently with the completion of asset data captures within all of the University’s campuses and faculties.

Barcode audits greatly reduced the manpower and time it takes to conduct these asset audits. Hardcat barcodes have also been aligned with ECU’s Oracle Financial database to assist with the cross-referencing of asset locations in Oracle.

Barcode auditing has also significantly reduced the time taken to conduct periodic asset audits by the Faculties. For example, one audit would normally have taken two days was completed in 6.5 hours.