To recap, so far in this blog series we have:

  • Defined the asset life cycle and some relevant terms
  • Established minimum sets of data needed to manage and track capitalized assets
  • Identified control points, touch points and opportunities to introduce errors into the information flow

We will now provide more detail pertaining to the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders and gatekeepers as well as suggest several improvements to the ordering stage.
In the coming entries we will suggest improvements to the receiving stage and to the tagging activity as well as the information flow.
Stakeholders:
A stakeholder is a term associated with people who have responsibility and authority for given business practices (i.e. they have a stake). These are usually management individuals who may participate in forming policy and who formulate procedures and monitor actions to insure alignment with policies.
Gatekeepers:
A gatekeeper is an individual who executes procedures and captures information at control points. Gatekeepers report to stakeholders and are responsible for complying with policies while performing their duties. In our example, a gatekeeper within the purchasing department is a buyer. A buyer is responsible for creating purchase orders and working with vendors in order to get orders fulfilled. The stakeholder would be the manager of the purchasing department.
Stay tuned for the final installment in this series…