Plain-English reference

Asset Tracking Glossary

Asset
A physical item or resource the organization chooses to control individually for operational, financial, risk or accountability reasons.
Asset ID
The organization’s stable internal identifier for an individual asset.
Asset register
The controlled index of individually tracked assets and their core records.
Custodian
The person, team or third party currently responsible for possession or day-to-day control of an asset.
Owner
The organization, department or other party that owns or has primary organizational responsibility for the asset.
Location
The physical place where an asset is expected or observed.
Status
A controlled value explaining the asset’s current lifecycle or availability state.
Condition
A description or grade of the asset’s physical or operational condition.
Serviceable
Usable for its intended organizational purpose under the applicable release or inspection process.
Unserviceable
Not currently usable for its intended purpose.
Repairable
Unserviceable but expected to be capable of return to use after an authorized repair process.
In transit
Between controlled locations and not yet received at the destination.
Quarantine / hold
Possessed but deliberately unavailable pending review, inspection or another release condition.
Physical verification
A process of comparing recorded asset identity and location with physical observation.
Reconciliation
The process of investigating and resolving differences between records and physical findings.
Chain of custody
The documented sequence of people or organizations that possessed or controlled an asset.
Commissioning
The transition from acquisition/installation into accepted operational use.
Decommissioning
The controlled removal of an asset from active service before final disposition or reuse.
Retirement
The lifecycle state indicating an asset is no longer active for normal operational use.
Disposition
The approved final path for an asset, such as transfer, sale, donation, recycling or other disposal.
RFID
Radio-frequency identification technology that can identify tagged objects without optical line-of-sight in suitable systems.
BLE
Bluetooth Low Energy, often used for proximity or location beacons.
GPS
Satellite-based positioning technology used for location of suitable mobile assets.