Remora Robotics centralises IT asset tracking to optimise budget spend

About Remora Robotics

Remora Robotics develops autonomous underwater robots that clean and inspect fish farms. Their robots help aquaculture companies significantly improve fish health and reduce CO2 emissions, all while continuously checking the farm environments to flag potential issues before they become a problem.

Industry: Robotics-as-a-Service / Aquaculture
Number of employees: 11-50
Location: Stavanger, Norway
Contacts: Marco Demmer, Director Manufacturing and Supply Chain

Fast growth created asset-related confusion

As a scale-up, Remora Robotics quickly accumulated a mix of purchased and leased IT equipment. Each quarter, invoices arrived from suppliers, but the team had no way to verify whether they still had the equipment, let alone who had it and how much time was left on the leasing agreement. 

To make life more difficult, even the suppliers struggled to provide the whole overview of what was being leased. The received invoices and scattered spreadsheets made it difficult to understand which equipment an invoice was for. Sometimes, even the serial numbers would be truncated due to character limits.

“With several leasing agreements for similar types of equipment, no human can possibly keep track of whether the equipment on an invoice still exists or what equipment it actually is.”
- Marco

They needed to take control and introduce a system that would provide clarity over what they owned, what they leased, and who had what, to not only optimise their internal efficiency but also to verify the invoices coming from suppliers. 

Choosing a suitable solution for IT assets and beyond

While searching for a solution to enhance the tracking of their IT equipment, Remora Robotics had to consider future growth and goals. They were aware that they would one day also need a system to track their robots, including the installed modules such as motors and cleaning brushes, the customer site where the robot was located, and the maintenance they had received. Remora Robotics ideally wanted an asset tracking system that could track both their IT assets and robots, keeping their options open. 

It was also crucial to Remora Robotics that their chosen solution integrated well with Jira as that’s where much of the business tracks their work, including the field maintenance team working with the robots.

They considered Asset Panda, Asset Tiger, Assets in Jira Service Management feature, and Starhive. They chose Starhive due to its comprehensive Jira integration and because they found the underlying structure of assets in Starhive to be far more flexible and capable than the other tools they considered. All at an affordable price.

“I think Starhive is quite intuitive and I like the visualisation of the relations between objects [e.g. laptop and lease agreement].”
- Marco

Solution and early impact

A view of Remora Robotics' computers in Starhive. All the other types of assets and items they are tracking can be seen on the left.

The team got started importing their IT assets, employees, and leases into Starhive. Each asset is linked to an employee (where applicable) and to the supplier and the lease agreement, where relevant. When a new invoice is sent, it is uploaded to the lease agreement, allowing for easy cross-referencing.

They have also utilised Starhive to track other important business assets, such as access cards and office furniture. 

“We have identified the potential and will save some money due to the new, organised structure we gained through Starhive.”
- Marco

One of Remora Robotics' contract agreements as stored in Starhive. Immediately they can see which assets are associated, which vendor, and critical information on the contract. Some assets and data are sensitive and are therefore restricted to the current user.

While it’s a little too early for Remora Robotics to state precisely the cost savings they have made from the Starhive solutions, they are well on track to save budget with this new solution. They have identified several lease agreements that need to be cancelled and found situations where it is more financially sensible for them to buy the asset outright. 

Looking ahead

Today Remora Robotics also tracks their robots and sub-modules on a high level in Starhive. Their future goal with their robots is to link Jira tickets for their field technicians to what robot hardware is involved, checklists of inspection or maintenance procedures, and past maintenance records so the field technicians have everything they need to get to work straight away.