3 Steps for Better Tool Management

The 3 Steps for better tool tracking

Every contractor, regardless of trade is realizing how important tool management is to their company’s bottom line and efficiency on projects. With productivity at the heart of success for any construction operations team, the impact of tool loss can be immediately felt. Today’s best tool tracking technologies are not accounting or inventory systems. They’re truly operations systems designed for the teams in the field – the ones doing the work – to have visibility into where tools are at all times.

What to Look For

Assess your tool inventory –

You must know what you have in order to protect it. If you don’t bother to keep a list of what the company owns, employees won’t either – and things will vanish.

Assign responsibility –

Transferring responsibility when a tool moves from person to person in the field is normally where manual lists and Excel sheets fail. Field transfers of responsibility are critical. A quick and easy transfer via simple technology can keep accountability for tools high even as they move from person to person.

Provide visibility-

Visibility saves money because having consistent information about where tools are located reduces the re-purchasing of these items.

A quick case study

As Senior Superintendent, Self-Perform Manager for Chicago’s Blinderman Construction, Jack Hobbs considered these areas when deciding on the right solution for his company. Hobbs explained, “We looked at several options on the market, but ShareMyToolbox was clearly the most advanced in the type of technology we were looking for to track our assets.” He added, “The most important feature is that we can not only assign it (the App) per location, but to the individual as well.” He realized that lacing the accountability for tool management on the individual make it easier to transfer tools and avoid the blame game when trying to locate them.