Having electronic records that trace back historical activities can be useful in many ways when keeping track of assets, performing inspections for compliance, or servicing equipment for preventative maintenance.
Any advanced audit trail should tell you when an activity happened, what the activity was and who carried it out - Orca Scan logs this information for you automatically.
Login to your Orca Scan account to view the history log for each of your items.
What’s in this post:
How the history log works
The main view in the Cloud sheet is the current status of all items and you can see the last changes made - that could be the last location an item was scanned, the current stock levels, or in the example below, the last servicing on two industrial machines.
This gives us a broad overview of all items but by clicking the ‘History’ button in the toolbar, you can choose a single item and see a historical record of all checks, servicing and repairs made to that machine in chronological order.
When a barcode is scanned and an update is made, the history log automatically creates individual records for each update that contains:
- What action was carried out - for example, an update or a created item.
- A timestamp for when the barcode was scanned and the update was made.
- The user ID and the device that was used to carry it out.
Benefits of an audit trail
A typical audit trail has role-based security where the normal user doesn’t have access to stop or change it. This way, the system can track actions from all users and ensures records are transparent and accurate.
We break the benefits down into three categories:
1. User accountability
Just by communicating the implementation of an audit trail every user will be aware that their actions are being logged against their identity.
We see many companies that reduce employees waste and reckless use of equipment by having them scan an asset tag with their mobile device and record their activities.
2. Traceability and loss prevention
With a chronological record of where each asset is located, who has it, when it was checked out; when it is due for return and who checked it out last - it’s easy to trace back when and where the asset was last seen - and who was in possession of it.
With an ongoing process, you can eliminate the need for comprehensive audits.
3. Improved equipment maintenance
When carrying out maintenance regularly on a piece of equipment to lessen the likelihood of failure, it’s crucial to record the servicing and any problems with the equipment to identify patterns of failure.
In the case of insured machines that break down, records that provide documentary evidence of properly scheduled maintenance is often required for claiming the insurance.
Questions about the audit trials?
We’re always happy to help, chat with us live or drop us an email.