In the last decade, technology has transformed traditional classrooms and increasingly children are starting their education with interactive whiteboards instead of a chalk blackboard. In this changing landscape, educational institutions have diverse audio visual (AV) equipment needs. Incorporating these changes has a significant impact on school operations and budgets.
“In recent years, there has been widespread excitement around the transformative potential of technology in education,” states a 2019 MIT News article. “In the United States alone, spending on education technology has now exceeded $13 billion.”
Clearly, technology is transformative but expensive. Nevertheless, educational institutions are constantly adopting new technology to enhance learning.
How do educational institutions use AV technology?
From K through college, AV enabled classrooms are helping shape how we educate today. For example, remote classrooms, assistive hearing, collaboration needs, and interactive learning require a complex combination of AV equipment.
Just consider remote classrooms. Video has become a key element in this style of learning where students access pre-recorded or live lectures off-campus and participate in interactive classroom sessions online. This flexibility has prompted a steady rise in massive open online courses with major universities expanding from traditional class size to thousands of remote learners.
Modern learning incorporates a broad range of AV equipment. So how does this impact your bottom line?
Whether you are investing in a new flat panel display or upgrading the classroom sound system, you need to maximize your ROI. You need to ensure that you are tracking all your AV assets, maintaining them for optimal performance and longevity, and have a disposal plan.
Using excel spreadsheets or a manual system to track your AV assets — which include expensive and sensitive technology — leaves you vulnerable to errors and inefficiencies. Streamline school operations and incorporate a software asset management system solution to manage your AV inventory.
Here are five reasons you should make the switch:
1. Keep accurate track of your equipment
AV equipment is often checked out in kits comprising large and small pieces such as microphones, projectors, LED screens, etc. Also, consider the support parts that are typically tacked on such as cables and connectors. Tracking all this equipment becomes a major administrative challenge, prone to errors.
An asset management system allows you to assign a unique identity to your AV assets and keep track of who has possession of them. Now if a student or a staff member checks out an item, they are responsible for it until it is returned. This creates an audit trail so locating missing assets is always painless.
2. Reduce loss/damage/theft with accountability
Now that you know who has checked out a certain item, they will be accountable in case of damage, loss, or theft. This encourages responsible behavior. Additionally, this impacts the financial bottom line as misplaced and lost items play havoc with school operations and budgets.
3. Perform regular maintenance to get maximum value
You invested in interactive whiteboards for your classrooms and increased student engagement. This is great until you realize the whiteboard is malfunctioning due to accumulated dust. A regular maintenance schedule would have helped avoid this problem. Now the downtime is costing you both time and money.
Why does this happen? A lot of organizations take a reactive approach when it comes to servicing their items. They enter their assets into repair only after there’s equipment failure. This approach slows down projects, deteriorates equipment faster, and increases the total cost of ownership.
Equipment tracking software can eliminate these inefficiencies, enabling you to automate maintenance and improve the efficiency of your AV equipment. Likewise, track item depreciation using multiple methods like monthly depreciation and run reports and analytics to get actionable data.
4. Allow reservations to run streamlined events
Streamline class activities and events and ensure there are no missing items or last-minute delays by making online reservations. For example, if you have an important lecture planned early in the morning that requires a projector and speakers, don’t leave it to the last minute. Check an online calendar to see if your equipment is available on the required dates. Asset management software enables staff and students to reserve this equipment beforehand so there are no conflicts.
5. Reduce administrative burden and cost
Between student welfare, policy updates, and curriculum revisions, equipment management may not rank very high on your list of priorities. This is where most institutes go wrong as unorganized equipment management silently hacks at your school operations and budget.
Automating this task will relieve administrative burden. AV equipment management software enables you to manage and track expensive AV equipment with a few clicks and allows staff to focus on their core responsibilities. Improved workflows, fewer losses/damages, and increased productivity automatically lower costs.
Read More: 5 Ways To Improve School Asset Management For Your Institution
How can our software help improve your workflow?
A robust asset management solution offers multiple features that can uniquely address your needs and improve workflows. For example, our asset management solution EZOfficeInventory offers the following features:
Bundles and Packages: Create a list of items that are typically checked out together. For example, if you host a monthly lecture that requires a projector, microphones, speakers, and smaller support items such as cables etc., check them out as a bundle or package for predictable event planning. No last-minute missing items and no last-minute surprises. Create as many bundles or packages as needed for all your events.
Recurring Work Orders: Solve a problem before it comes up by scheduling recurring services for your equipment. Do inspection checks, regular servicing, and maintenance on your equipment on a recurring basis to ensure it is in the best possible condition. This increases your equipment lifecycle and ensures it is always ready for use.
Availability Calendar: Ensure smooth events and operations by viewing item availability from the calendar. Reserve equipment for your entire schedule in advance to make sure your equipment is available. No double bookings mean less time is wasted in delays and confusion.
Barcodes and QR codes: Assign Barcodes and QR codes to every item in your school inventory. Since different departments have specific needs, you can also create department-specific codes. This means you can keep track of assets in the possession of various offices through a single interface.
Make the switch today and optimize school operations and budget with the asset management software advantage.
About EZOfficeInventory
EZOfficeInventory is the leading asset management software. It enables you to track, maintain and report on equipment from anywhere, at any time.
If you’d like to share any queries or confusions about EZOfficeInventory, reach out to us at support@ezo.io and our support team will get back to you.
