If you’re in the construction industry, you’ll know how important it is to keep on top of your tool management. It plays a vital role in growing a business and helping you be successful.

Without proper tool management jobs can be delayed, customers let down and your business reputation ruined. Don’t forget it only takes one bad job to put off any future customers you may have lined up.

To help your business succeed, let’s take a look at some of the key factors around tool management and how you can make improvements of your own.

Keep track of your equipment

Staying on top of the equipment you have as well as when it’s out on jobs can really help your business grow. By knowing what you have and don’t have available at any one time, you may be able to take on even more jobs than before.

Unfortunately, keeping track of your construction equipment is one of the toughest jobs and requires a lot of time and effort – it doesn’t matter if you have essential tool boxes or larger scale equipment.

If you have an outdated and non-digital system, it can mean hours of preparation where your workers come and pick up their tools from the office or warehouse manually, before heading off to site.

This may mean logging their names and each individual piece of equipment in a log book, instead of the easier option of registering them on the computer. By logging things in and out in such a manual way, you’re also at risk of tools and equipment getting lost or even stolen.

Stay on top of your maintenance

As your tools are often used in such harsh conditions, it’s likely that their lifespan is short, especially if they’re not maintained properly. It can be difficult to keep a track of when tools have been maintained and which ones need looking at next.

Adopting a schedule or solution that helps you keep on track of equipment maintenance will make sure you get the most out of your tools, and will also be able to tell you when certain ones are out of action.

Plan what tools

Planning what tools you need before your workforce head out to each job, will help your business in a number of ways. Where growth is concerned, you’ll be able to see which tools are out of the business on which jobs, allowing you to book in other work that perhaps needs a different set of equipment. After all, the more jobs you can take on, the more money is coming in!

Invest in a tool management system

A tool management system may be the solution your business is looking for. If you’ve been struggling along with paperwork and log books, having a digital system in place can help you become much more streamline.

You’ll be able to perform things such as a tool audit to see what you have in your business already, look at tool security to ensure equipment is being checked out and back in by your employees, and monitor when tools and equipment need maintaining or a newer version needs purchasing.