RF Code: The Data Driven Data Center

Asset audits are a waste of time

Written by Brett Arnott | Thu, Aug 28, 2025

In the time it takes you to read this post active RFID asset tracking can complete a location audit of all assets in all locations including racked and un-racked assets.

In Comparison...

In comparison, manually auditing 5,000 assets 3 times per year eats up 1,250 hours! And that doesn’t even include travel time.

What do you have to show for those 1,250 hours?

  1. 3 out-of-date spreadsheets
  2. A 1,250-hour hit to productivity
  3. Underutilized talent – skilled data center resources doing work that can be easily automated
  4. The feeling of running in place – manual audits don’t improve anything, they just maintain the status quo

Consider that last point again, because it's extremely important - manual audits don’t improve anything, they just maintain the status quo.

What’s the impact of changing?

Data center teams that have worked this out have transformed how they perform data center audits in these ways:

🔄 Instead of doing one time audits many times a year they automate continuous audits

💻 Instead of creating 3 out-of-date spreadsheets they have on demand access to audit reporting

💪 Instead of a 1,250-hour hit to productivity they increase resource capacity, without hiring more people

🚀 Instead of feeling like they are running in place they increase compliance and process performance

🎯 Instead of underutilizing their talent they get skilled resources back to doing skilled high value work

Let’s not forget the risk…

The thing about compliance is that non-compliance can be extremely costly.

Take a real-world example where alleged non-compliant handling of assets exposed customer data resulting in $35M in fines paid to the SEC, $60M lawsuit settlement and 15M customers impacted.

The SEC claims that the bank failed to properly monitor asset handling and disposal work.

Not naming the bank, because the purpose is not to name and shame, only to shine a light on the business impact.

If your business is subject to regulations, you need to get compliance right. Remember, manual asset audits don’t improve anything, they just maintain the status quo.

Raiders of the Lost Asset

For fun - learn more with this fun take on asset auditing for DCIMs.  Read here.