Asset management for growing Manufacturing & Engineering businesses: 2026 challenges & solutions
With 2026 bringing continued cost pressure, supply chain disruption, and tighter margins, manufacturers can’t afford downtime or inefficiencies hiding in their asset operations.
They don’t usually have assets moving between sites every day.
But they do have something just as painful:
Chain of custody.
And FoD (Foreign Object Debris).
In other words: it’s not just “where is the tool?”
It’s “who touched it, when, and did it come back?”
And like construction, manufacturing teams typically manage several asset families, often split across different tools.
In 2026, with modern, all-in-one asset management software, that’s no longer necessary.
What Manufacturers Are Actually Managing
1) Consumables, Materials & PPE
Examples:
- gloves, masks, protective wear
- cleaning materials
- filters, lubricants
- packaging materials
Traditionally: inventory & stock management
2) Shared Tools & Equipment
Examples:
- torque tools
- calibration devices
- measuring equipment
- toolkits
Traditionally: asset tracking tool
3) Machines, Parts & Production Equipment
Examples:
- CNC machines
- conveyors
- compressors
- production line equipment
- spare parts
Traditionally: CMMS
4) Building & Facilities Maintenance
Examples:
- HVAC
- electrical systems
- safety equipment
- site infrastructure
Traditionally: CMMS or facilities management system
5) Vehicles (Optional)
Examples:
- delivery vans
- forklifts (depending how tracked)
- service vehicles
Traditionally: fleet management tool
The 2026 Challenges
Chain of Custody + FoD Risk
Tools and parts need strict tracking. If something goes missing or isn’t returned, it’s not just inconvenient — it can become a safety and compliance risk.
Maintenance Must Be Predictable
If maintenance is reactive, production suffers. Scheduling, logging, and service history become critical.
Siloed Tools Create Blind Spots
When inventory, maintenance, tracking, and finance live in separate systems, you lose the ability to answer basic questions quickly.
The 2026 Solution: Unified Asset Management for Growing Manufacturers
In 2026, manufacturers can unify all asset families in one easy asset management software like Bulbthings AI:
- stock control for consumables and PPE
- tracking for shared tools and equipment
- CMMS-style maintenance for machines and facilities
- fleet visibility when needed
- financial tracking and invoicing for hire/rental use cases
And crucially: you can enable these modules gradually.
Because you don’t need “enterprise asset management”.
You need all-in-one asset management software that grows with you.
Bulbthings AI helps teams onboard fast by:
- recognise asset picture and add them into the system with relevant information
- import messy spreadsheets
- take actions when asked in natural language (e.g “tell me what tool is available now and book it these ones”, “add these machines to the maintenance schedule”)
- take recurring actions (e.g. “send me a list of all upcoming work orders with this specific information, every morning at 09:00”)
- get instant reports (e.g. “tell me what’s currently on site X”, “give me a breakdown by category of all outgoing consumables between the 1st of January and 5th of March 2026”)
So instead of becoming the “system manager”…
…you get to do your actual job.