Openboxes as Asset Management - Possible?

1

So hear me out first before you blow my head.

I am trying to see if OB will be a fit for this use case. So we have assets, mostly medical equipment that we loan out to other medical facilities. Sort of Like a library that has books and loans them out.

Does OB have the capacity to see some outbounds as loans that will be due for returns? Think of a hospital temporarily loaning out some equipment that will be returned. Can OB handle this out of the box?

2

Does OB have the capacity to see some outbounds as loans that will be due for returns? Think of a hospital temporarily loaning out some equipment that will be returned. Can OB handle this out of the box?

Yes you can implement that use case. But we haven’t built full asset management functionality yet.

3

And if you need a full-fleged asset management system I’d recommend taking a look at SnipeIt snipeitapp.com.

4

How would you suggest I start thinking about it? How would I generate a picklist for items to be loaned out? How do I treat these Items when they are returned?..any pointers will be great

5

Create a location type that encapsulates the loanee. Add MANAGE_INVENTORY as a supported activity so you can log into these locations to handle the return process.

Then create downstream locations that use this location type. These locations could be physical locations, a status like “Loaned”, or the loanee (a person created as a location).

Then you can just create outbound stock movements to the location. Once the stock is issue you would no longer see the stock in your location. You’d either need to log into the location it was sent or check the All Locations tab on the Stock Card page.

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Now that I’m thinking about it, there are a bunch of ways to do this. For example you could create special “hold” locations that represent the status of stock item i.e. Loaned, In Repair, etc. This would allow you to move the item to the On Loan location, but it would continue to exist in your location. The HOLD_STOCK supported activity would make sure the item was not allocated to another order.

There are a couple of features currently in development that might help with the process.

  • Allow user to request stock (I believe this already exists) from a downstream location
  • Allow user to return stock to a depot (push from downstream)
  • Allow user to return stock to a depot (pull from upstream)
6

I will give this a spin and get back with feedback