7 Ways to Reduce Tool Loss and Asset Shrinkage Across Multiple Job Sites

Tools have a habit of disappearing. Your employees might leave them at a job site, store them in the wrong vehicle, or even return them without updating equipment records.

When you're managing equipment across multiple job sites, even small tracking gaps like this can make it hard to find essential equipment. That results in wasted time and replacement costs your company doesn't need.

The good news is that you don't need a complicated system to reduce tool loss. Learn why asset shrinkage is hurting your business and seven best practices to improve accountability.

Why Tools Go Missing and How It Affects Your Business

It's the nature of your business: tools move between employees, job sites, and storage areas. You can't change that, but without documenting these handoffs, you risk:

• Theft
• Assigning items to the wrong people
• Leaving equipment at a completed job site
• Returning tools to the wrong place

These problems affect more than your budget. Employees waste time searching for tools, contacting other crews, and checking vehicles. If you can't locate an essential asset, you might even need to stop work while you find a replacement.

These inefficiencies add up fast. In fact, theft of construction equipment and tools alone costs the U.S. construction industry around $1 billion each year.

7 Tips to Reduce Tool Loss

Don't ask your employees to complete a complicated process every time they pick up a drill. Asset tracking and accountability stop asset shrinkage, but you can't demand visibility at the expense of productivity. Follow these tips to set up a simple tool-loss prevention system that employees will follow at any job site.

1. Use Asset Tracking Software

Spreadsheets can tell you which tools your company owns, but they're less useful when equipment moves between people and locations. Asset tracking software creates a central, up-to-date record of each item's location, status, and history.

You don't need an over-engineered tracking solution. Scanlily is a flexible equipment tracking software designed to go with your team into the field. It also allows employees to access and update asset records from their phones, so they don't need a special device. Each QR code opens an online page in any browser, so workers don't have to download an app just to view an item's information.

Managers also get access to helpful features that improve visibility across multiple job sites, including:

• Role-based permissions
• GPS data
• Reminders
• Audit logs

2. Create an Equipment Inventory

You can't track equipment if you don't know what you own. If you haven't already, create a centralized inventory that includes important information about each tool, like:

• Item name
• Category
• Make, model, and serial number
• Location
• Owner
• Condition
• Purchase and warranty information
• Maintenance schedule
• Photos, receipts, and manuals

If cataloging everything at once is overwhelming, start small. Take inventory of tools that are more expensive, frequently shared, or more likely to go missing.

Scanlily also takes the overwhelm out of the inventory process. Our AI image recognition feature can identify items from photos and automatically populate asset details.

The Scanlily video recognition feature makes bulk inventory even faster. Start by recording a video of your tools or stock room while describing them aloud. From there, Scanlily takes your video and creates individual records with images, quantities, categories, and other details in a few minutes.

3. Assign Every Asset a Unique Identifier

Give each asset a unique tracking number and attach a barcode or QR code that connects to its individual record in your tracking software.

With a quick scan on their smartphone, employees will be able to pull up information on:

• Where it belongs
• Who's responsible for it
• Whether it's available
• Its condition or maintenance

Scanily's photo and video inventory feature speeds up bulk uploading, but the platform also takes a QR-first approach to asset documentation. Your team can scan a new label and create the asset record from a mobile device. This makes it easier to label equipment as it enters your inventory instead of creating records first and matching labels later.

4. Decide Who's in Charge of Shared Equipment

Tools disappear when everyone uses them, but no one is in charge of them. Always assign shared equipment to a specific employee, crew leader, or jobsite supervisor so that someone is accountable for it.

The assigned person doesn't have to monitor the tool every minute. Their role is to confirm that it's accounted for at agreed-upon times, like at the end of the workday.

Make sure to update the assignee in your records whenever equipment moves to another crew or location. Otherwise, employees may waste time contacting someone who no longer has the item.

5. Standardize Check-In/Check-Out

Equipment goes missing when employees fail to check in or check out properly. Sometimes it's a matter of rushing between job sites, though requiring your team to complete a complicated worksheet reduces the likelihood they'll finish it.

Your employees need a simple check-in/check-out process that you can also hold them accountable to. Use the same check-in/check-out process at every location. Employees should record:

• Who took the tool
• Where it's going
• When it left
• When it should return
• Its condition at checkout and return

Keep the workflow short enough to complete in the field. If recording a transfer takes several minutes or requires returning to a computer, employees won't stick with it.

You can also simplify check-in/check-out with Scanlily. Not only does it include structured reservation features, but you can also schedule equipment use in a few taps.

6. Schedule Tool Counts

Don't wait until your annual inventory to discover missing equipment. Short, frequent tool counts can uncover discrepancies while employees still remember where they last used a tool.

It's best to schedule regular, small tool counts, which can happen:

• At the end of each shift or workweek
• After completing a project phase
• Before a crew leaves the job site
• When equipment returns to a warehouse
• Before transferring equipment to another location

Use cycle counts to review one location, vehicle, crew, or equipment category at a time. Lean on a platform like Scanlily for audit logs, which provide a helpful digital paper trail for missing equipment.

7. Set Up Alerts

Did your team forget to check a tool back in? Or did a GPS-tagged piece of equipment go outside its approved range? Scanlily allows you to create notifications for all sorts of situations, like:

• An asset's returned late
• A scheduled tool count is due
• Equipment needs maintenance
• A warranty is about to expire
• An item remains assigned to a completed project
• A departing employee still has company property

Scanlily's calendar-based bookings and reminders can help you manage everything from returns and inspections to reservations. When you receive an alert, you can assign someone to investigate the issue and keep all of your information in one place.

Account for Every Tool

Tool loss will happen; that's just the nature of your business. Even the best systems can't account for human forgetfulness, theft, or oversights during your busy season.

However, you can take several steps to reduce asset shrinkage, save time, and reduce unnecessary expenses. Regularly taking inventory, tracking with unique QR codes, clear responsibilities, and digital tracking solutions like Scanlily give you more visibility at every job site.

Scanlily brings this information together in one easy-to-use platform. Track equipment from a mobile device, maintain a detailed audit log, and help your teams find the tools they need without creating more administrative work.

Take control of your equipment: Start your free Scanlily trial today.