Assetrix - Custom Asset tracking software

Assetrix is really just a simple QR code asset management application, which is not a new idea by any stretch. However, I was somewhat forced to build it out of necessity at my previous job.

One of our primary clients had been in discussions with a major power company to purchase a decommissioned gas compressor station that had already started to be dismantled. The plant still had years of use left, and the client intended to repurpose the equipment for a new gas field they were developing. While we had the original construction plans, ISO's and P&IDs, we quickly realized that once it had been disassembled it would be incredibly difficult to identify the thousands of components - piping, valves, instruments, supports, and machinery. If we wanted to have any chance at reassembling the compressor station, we needed a comprehensive inventory management system.

However time was not on our side; the decommissioning had already begun when it was purchased and we essentially had 3 business days to get some sort of asset tracking system in place. Our first thought was to use an established, industry specific asset management tool, which are quite common. When I contacted several providers I was told that the lead time to get set-up was in the order of weeks, not days.

I volunteered to build a system that would hopefully get us across the line so we at least had some kind of record of how everything was put together. The client approved our request on Wednesday morning, by lunchtime I had ordered 2000 generic QR code stickers/tags incremented from 000001 to 002000 that would be ready for collection the next day. At the same time, another member of our team worked out the data structure we'd need to record of each piece of equipment: Plant Section, Subsection, Item No., P&ID No. ISO No., Equipment type, description, photos, etc.

I then spent the next 4 days building a cross-platform application using react-native that would allow us to quickly input the required information. I wanted it to be accessible as a native mobile application, as well as from the browser. This turned out to be overkill, and a simple web application would have worked fine, but hindsight is 20-20.

On Monday the next week, myself and another engineer from the team flew out to site and spent the next 3 weeks meticulously going through the original plans and marking every relevant piece of equipment on the site.

We divided the compressor station into super structures (Compressor 1, TEG Unit, Flare, etc.) and assigned each of these a color. When placing a QR code sticker, we also placed a dot of spray paint that corresponded with the relevant section. As the plant was being disassembled and temporarily placed in a laydown yard for storage, we wanted to make sure that all related pieces were placed in the same spot. Of course it isn't that simple, with multiple systems being interconnected which you can see in the Inventory page example above, where the super structures often have 2 or more colours attached to them.

We used heavy duty all-weather stickers for the QR codes with the intent that when the compressor station is reconstructed in Q4 2024, the engineers and construction crew will be able to scan a piece of equipment, and know exactly where it is meant to go.

The app is still in regular use at my previous company to help organize equipment refurbishment. I haven't made either the code or the app itself public as it is technically not my property - being built on company time.